Friday, February 05, 2010

A Poetry Friday Guest: Barney Saltzberg!


Ooooh! I have a guest! And not just any guest, but Barney Saltzberg - a singing, songwriting, illustrating, picture book and poetry writing guest. The piece of a poem that follows is an excerpt from his book All Around the Seasons, coming out next week. Can anyone guess how many poems/seasons are in the book? Good - all of you who said four can stay late and help clean the erasers.


WINTER
by
Barney Saltzberg

A carrot nosed friend
Appears in the yard;
Forever smiling
A snowman stands guard.

Flickering candles,
Reindeer and sleighs,
Twinkling lights-
Hooray, holidays!

Gliding on ice,
Bundled in fleece.
Silently snow falls;
Winter is peace.

(© 2010 by Barney Saltzberg)


If you've ever had the luck to see Barney Saltzberg perform or use one of his books as a read-aloud, I'd be willing to bet you've heard kids' laughter. Heck, in my library, kids started laughing when I showed them the title The Soccer Mom from Out of Space (then kept laughing all the way through).

All Around the Seasons (from Candlewick) is for the younger crowd and as the piece of Winter up above shows, it's not just about the laughs. Seasons is instead about that warm, happy, fun reading-in-the-lap time feeling, seems to me. And that is something we can always use.

Thanks for stopping by (both you and Barney)... and if you haven't already, why not head on over to the Poetry Friday roundup, happily hosted over at Great Kid Books? You'll get Langston Hughes and book reviews and poems and more, more, more.

8 comments:

jama said...

OH, love the poem! Looks like a fetching book. And how did you know I like cleaning erasers? :D

Stella said...

Ohhh...a new poetry book coming out! Wonderful news..as of the cleaning eraser job...I pass...

tanita✿davis said...

Oh, and I love the cover on this, too.

I can't stay late today, though. Piano lessons.

Elaine Magliaro said...

Thanks for the recommendation. I love children's poetry books!

Barney Saltzberg Author, Illustrator, Songwriter said...

I was THRILLED to wake up this morning and read your blog posting for my new book. This book is a departure from any of my other books and I can't think of a better way to launch All Around the Seasons. (Okay, Oprah... but I'm NOT complaining!!!) Seriously, thanks for recommending my book! MOST, sincerely, Barney

Laura said...

What a lovely poem! I'm glad Barney needed a change of seasons from lol books to comfy, cozy books.

Thanks for sharing.

Mary Lee said...

Looks like another great one for my classroom collection!

Catherine Evans said...

Looks like that multi-talented Barney has done it again! Can't wait to read the rest. Thanks for sharing this!