51. Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech

I already read this book earlier this year but I decided to listen to the book on CD because I really liked it. I love to listen to poetry, and since this is a book written in verse, I thought it would be fun to listen to. I loved it. The reading was great and they threw in a little beatnik drums in the background. It was really fun. And the classic poetry that the story bridged to was fun to listen to as well. I would highly recommend it.

41. Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech

I loved this book, which is a sequel to Love That Dog. It is a novel written in verse and it is really fun to read. Jack, the main character, fulfills assignments from his teacher by modeling popular poets. It is sooo funny and touching. Definitely worth the hour it will take you to read it.

12. Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy

I'm going to say right up front that I don't really like holocaust books. I believe the holocaust happened and I believe it was terrible, but I don't like to read all the horrors of it. But this is probably the happiest holocaust book I've ever read. I read it because it was the mother-daughter book club for the month. Yellow Star, based on the author's aunt's actual experiences, is about a Jewish girl named Syvia in Nazi Poland. It goes from 1939 when Syvia's family is forced to move to the ghetto in Lodz until her family is liberated by the Russians in 1945. The whole book is told in free verse poetry from the perspective of this little girl. I really liked it. The free verse really appealed to me and was very touching without being heavy handed. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

37. How to Cross a Pond: Poems about Water by Marilyn Singer

This was a really cool poetry book. It felt less like children's poetry than the other two I read, more like adult poetry. The poems were also accompanied by some really cool Asian-style water color pictures. It really was a beautiful book and the poetry was very vivid and imaginative. I just thought it was amazing and peaceful. You really should check it out. It only takes a few minutes to read.

Here's one of my favorites:

What Water Can Be
A furrow that's filling
Water, collective
Your face in the puddle
Water, reflective
A network of rivers
Water, connective
Your boat drifting downstream
Water, directive
A storm in the city
Water, objective
One drop on your eyelash
Water, selective

36. Mary Had a Little Jam and Other Silly Rhymes by Bruce Lansky

This is a fun book to read, especially with kids. My girls and I sang through the whole book. The rhymes are new words put to the old nursery rhymes like "Mary had a little jam" instead of "Mary had a little lamb."

Here's my favorite:

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

I wish they'd had super glue way back then---

they could have put Humpty together again."

35. I Scream, You Scream: A Feast of Food Rhymes by Lillian Morrison

This month at Kate's book club the theme is poetry so I read three different books because they're all short and fun. This first one is a collection of rhymes about food (they're not poems the author has written just rhymes she's heard). They're fun. There are lots of good ones but here's one of my favorites:

"I was always religiously inclined,"

Said the oyster as he slid down

The minister's throat, "but never

Did I dream I'd enter the clergy."

It made me laugh and only took about a half hour to read.