Avis Harley

My children’s poetry book is African Acrostics: A Word in Edgeways. Written by Avis Harley and its pages photographs were provided by Deborah Noyes. I didn’t know that this type of poem is called acrostic, I’ve seen this done as a writing project for second graders using their names early in the school year for a classroom hallway bulletin board. An acrostic is a poetic form where a name or a phrase is found by reading certain letters in the poem downward. Often the phrase is formed by the initial letter of each line. The acrostics in this book are lyrically creative and visually clever. There’s a double acrostic (first and last letters of each line), a cross acrostic (which you find reading it diagonally) and the multiple acrostic (such as the page showing a Horn Bill bird). Each page shows vivid photographs of animals most students have already seen in books and movies such as the Lion King.
The first acrostic poem is called Acrostic and spells out WORD IN EDGEWAYS while the text is informative and playful instruction on how to enjoy this poetry form. This book was a lovely surprise and I hope you find it and enjoy it as well. It looks as fun to read out loud as it is to share its fun and discovery with another.… (mehr)

This book contains color photographs of various African animals, each with a lighthearted poem that contains an acrostic. While some of the acrostics simply spell the name of the animals, others expand the topic of the poem. There are varying rhythms in the poems and some are more serious than others. Included in the book is a nice biography of the author and photographer. The last page explains how the photographer captured many of the photos for the book-quite interesting. There are two pages of more information about each animal included in the acrostics. Also included are two pages explaining acrostics.
This is a fantastic book for introducing students to a common type of poetry-acrostics. The possible curricular activities for this book are endless.… (mehr)

This is a very simple book, meant to give a varied version of the acrostic poem, set adjacent to photos of the African animals in which they describe. At first I thought it would be a repetition of the first poem, "A Croc Acrostic," with the first letters of each word spelling CROCODILE. But the author took it in a fun direction. Like the poem about hippopotamuses which spells RIVER REVERIE. But my favorite was perhaps the poem about giraffes which spelled SKY FRIENDS. It was cute.

I don't really know how I would describe a theme for a book filled with gimmicky poetry that describes animals. It's fun, and it's certainly a beneficial text for elementary students when they come across this form...but I don't know about any overarching theme.

The only use I could think for this would be in a lesson about acrostic poetry, in which this text, or this and others, are used as a guide to writing their own poems.… (mehr)