April is National Poetry Month, reminding us of poetry’s important role in our culture and in our classrooms. We are celebrating by appreciating a few titles that highlight inspiring poems that can help your students express themselves through reading and writing.
In this heartfelt celebration of love, Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña and illustrator Loren Long depict the many ways we experience a universal bond. With a lyrical text that is soothing and inspiring, this tender tale is a needed comfort and a new classic that will resonate with readers of every age.
This is an upbeat, empowering, and important picture book about a creative, adventurous, smart, funny, and a good friend, from the team that created the award-winning Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut.
That Is My Dream!: A picture book of Langston Hughes’s “Dream Variation”
Here is the picture book of “Dream Variation,” one of Langston Hughes’s most celebrated poems, illustrated by Daniel Miyares, the acclaimed creator of Float, about the dream of a world free of discrimination and racial prejudice.
Beth Ain chronicles the big and small moments that make up a new school year in this heartwarming novel in verse.
This poetry collection introduces readers to the art of found poetry as the poet writes a 37-line poem, “Nest,” then finds 160 smaller poems within it. The joyous creativity in this volume is certain to inspire budding poets.
Celebrated poet Lee Bennett Hopkins shares a diverse collection of poems that ask “Who do you want to be?” In this collection, fifteen poets write about who they might like to be, musing what life would be like as a wizard, a firefighter, a video-game inventor, and more.
Poet Jordan Scott writes movingly in this powerful and uplifting book, based on his own experience, about a boy who stutters and feels incapable of communicating in the way he’d like. It takes a kindly father and a walk by the river to help him find his voice.
