Some of you may remember that Garrison Keillor used to begin his weekly news from Lake Wobegon with the phrase “It’s been a quite week in my hometown…” That does not describe life in my neck of the woods this week. In addition to getting ready for the start of school, my hometown is getting ready for the fire department’s annual Country Fair. This is a major fundraiser for them and everyone pitches in to help make it a success. (Read more about the Fair in a previous post here.)
In addition to my Sealey Challenge reading, I’ve been scouring poetry websites for poems to use with my students. While I may not share this one with them, this poem struck a cord with me.
“The World Book”
by Patricia Hooper
When the woman in blue serge
held up the sun, my mother
opened the storm door, taking
the whole volume of S
Into her hands. The sun
shown as a sun should,
and we sat down at the table
leafing through silks and ships,
saints and subtraction. We passed
Scotland and Spain, street-
cars and seeds and even
the Seven Wonders until
the woman who owned them skipped
to the solar system and said
It could be ours.
Read the rest here
This weeks Sealey Challenge titles:
- The Maine Coon’s Haiku and Other Poems for Cat Lovers, by Michael Rosen
- Heroes and She-roes: Poems of Amazing and Everyday Heroes, by J. Patrick Lewis
- The Way Things Are, and Other Poems by Myra Cohn Livingston
- We Are Branches by Joyce Sidman
- Galapagos: Islands of Change by Leslie Bulion
- Counting in Dog Years & Other Sassy Math Poems by Betsy Franco
- Today at the Bluebird Cafe by Deborah Ruddell
Please be sure to visit my friend and fellow Inkling Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 
Such a charming poem! Thanksssss.
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“The World Book” brings back childhood memories of scanning random topics, strung together only by their position in the alphabet. Good luck with the fair. What a beautiful picture!
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Hope you’ve had a Special Start to School, Catherine. This is fabulous, though we had no woman at the door, we had the weekly visit to the Store to get the next volume of Funk & Wagnall’s. I hope you share next week what your students think of it when you share. And, best wishes to the fire department for their fair!
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That photo is stunning! Hope the fair is a success. I’m copying your list of titles – thank you!
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A great list of titles. All who are doing the challenge are making my TBR list very long! The poem you shared brings memories of the encyclopedia set my parents bought for us. Love the rainbows and the fire department fair. My dad was in the volunteer fire department and I remember picnics and games put on by the firemen.
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Thanks for the list, Catherine. No reason why I couldn’t do the Sealy Challenge some other month. I loved in the Hooper poem like line about the girl waiting for the world to arrive, which resonated with me, and the world so connected with words. A poem to keep.
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I love the poem you shared and it sparked wonderful memories of hours spent scanning World Books on the family room floor. Your rainbow photo is phenomenal, and I hope the fair lives up to its advance hype! Good luck with the start to school.
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Catherine, love Hopper’s poem about the S volume of the World Book. The rainbow frame for the firefighter’s Country Fair looks inviting. (I can’t get the link to work for more about the country fair.) All the best! Enjoy. Hope you are ready for the new school year.
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A double rainbow! Glorious. Best wishes to your town for the fair. And that poem… beyond scrumptious. One to suss out and savor…..
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Wow! I love this poem…my love for encyclopedias is pretty big. And, the poem has the word, “words” in it. And, it’s such a lovely and descriptive poem about another “s” word, “salesperson.” GREAT poem, Catherine. I”m copying this one into my notebook. Thank you so much for sharing it.
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I love your little hometown, Catherine! I hope the fair is wonderful, as wonderful as this poem, which I LOVE. Ours were Compton’s, but the feeling of abundance and wonder was the same.
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This poem has stayed with me since I first read it days ago. How did Hooper manage all that alliteration without it becoming too much?
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The World Book poem reminds me of how much can be learned from encyclopedias and adult-supported interests. So much information was gleaned from opening those pages. Thanks for sharing it.
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Catherine, this poem inspires me to write A-to-Z poems! So fun! Thank you for sharing you beautiful rainbow, too!
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You’ve read so many good books this week! WE ARE BRANCHES is a new favorite of mine!
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