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December 08, 2006
It’s Snowing! It’s Snowing!: Poetry Friday
Stuck in the Snow
Stuck in the snow,
dad’s pickup truck.
“Sorry, dad,
that’s your bad luck.”
“Shovel it out!”
he smiled and said.
I guess it’s my
bad luck instead.
-from It’s Snowing! It’s Snowing!: Winter Poems by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Yossi Abolafia or Jeanne Titherington – take your pick
Those crazy folks at HarperCollins are trying to convince me to buy a book I already own.
First released in 1984, It’s Snowing! It’s Snowing! is a collection of sixteen Prelutskys (Prelutskies?) accompanied by lovely drawings by Jeanne Titherington (of Pumpkin, Pumpkin fame). The poems are typical Prelutsky – engaging, silly, fun. Titherington’s staid and finely-shaded drawings are a rather incongruous match, especially when you compare them to the illustrations by Yossi Abolafia in 2006’s I Can Read reissue. Where Titherington’s illustrations have an old-fashioned feel, Abolafia’s are cartoony – reminiscent of James Stevenson. I love Titherington’s art, but I think Abolafia’s are a better match. That said, it seems odd to me to take something that was previously written and toss it into the I Can Read mix at a level 3 (“Complex plots for confident readers”? I’d argue that), but maybe that’s just me. Our copy of the original has been circulating pretty steadily here in Webster, so my plan is to make a new friend but keep the old. It will be interesting to see which illustrator wins out over time….
And of course It's Snowing here in Rochester today -- big white flakes and lots of sun, a day that makes you wonder why you were dreading winter.
[Be sure to check out the Poetry Friday Roundup over at Chicken Spaghetti.]
Posted by adrienne at December 8, 2006 08:06 AM
Comments
The James Kim story that's in the news now, the guy who got lost in Oregon trying to save his family, is just the saddest story this year to me. I'm not sure why, maybe because of that one photo of him with his kids and he's all smiles and joy. Maybe because it's the nightmare a guy can have, to try to do something to save the ones you're on the Earth specifically to look out for, only to die and have them be saved in spite of your impotent efforts. I feel as kind of a kindred spirit with him because the whole thing sounds so much like something I would do, from getting lost in the first place to taking off into the woods to do SOMETHING, to walking eight miles only to be found 1/2 mile from the car and a mile from a lodge with six months worth of food. And the thing is, he's not stupid, and neither am I. He found some ingenious ways to let survive during the eight days in the car. I mean at all turns he did the right and rational thing (after getting lost in the first place, which was pretty dumb, but I've done it too), but he is still gone and if he'd done nothing they would all be okay. But now life just goes on as always except that his family goes on without him.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/08/missing.family.ap/index.html
Posted by: chuck at December 8, 2006 12:35 PM
The James Kim story is very sad. I was thinking the perhaps the poet grew up with my dad because that poem sounded like my dad.
Posted by: tonderdo at December 11, 2006 02:59 PM