Humorous poetry is hard to come by but it is all James Stevenson does in his colorful books. He writes about his experiences and for students this is a great reference if you are doing a unit on personal writing. His illustrations are beautiful and when you know so little about him (his background information is provided no where on the internet) your class can use context clues from the text in order to find out more about his past. Students will find his writing exciting and inspiring for their own writing and his story is very compelling.
James Stevenson’s book, That Terrible Halloween Night is a great themed resource for the fall and the Halloween time of year. Young readers would love to read this humorous and gross story that is not too scary. A young girl’s grandpa explains why he is not scared of Halloween tricks, but he does spin a tail of a time he went into a haunted house as a child and got so scared he came out a old man. I liked that this book doesn’t tell what scared him, it could be a great opportunity for students to predict and write about what they think might have happened to him in the haunted house. A great award winning author and terrific resource for kids and grandparents to read together.
Chelsea Stein
I thought it was very interesting how there isn’t any information about him, I wonder why?
I wish you would have included a snippet of his writing or a poem so I could get a feel of his “exuberant poetry”.
I really liked the fact that this author has a lot of humorous literature. I think his literature would be very fun to use in the classroom. Similarly, it is interesting to learn that there isn’t much information available about his life. I think that it would be great to allow students to explore this concept through fun activities using contexts clues so that they may learn more about him. I think it would be a good idea to see some examples of his works in your presentation.