I am really enjoying my journey to find poetry for children and adolescents. Today, I found J. Patrick Lewis, and read through Heroes and She-Roes: Poems of Amazing and Everyday Heroes. There are some wonderful gems in this book, great to tie in with many subjects for teachers; for example: there are poems about heroes like Ghandi, the rescuers from September 11 and even an Elementary School Teacher. The last poem in the book says it all:
So heroes set aside their fear
To lend a hand or lend an ear,
To face the night or save the day
And never look the other way.
They do not, with a single bound,
Leap up tall buildings from the ground.
But from a sense of decency,
The share themselves with you and me.
No matter what or where or who,
When something must be done,
They do.
From Heroes and She-Roes: Poems of Amazing and Everyday Heroes J. Patrick Lewis, (2005) New York, Penguin Group.
My daughter recently had an assignment for her 7th grade Language Arts and Reading class that wanted the children to "Pay it Forward". In the assignment, students were to sacrifice their time to help someone else, only asking that the person helped would pay it forward. The students then were asked to write a paper about the experience, sharing what they did and how they felt. This is the kind of book that would be a great lead in for this type of assignment, because many of the heroes depicted were just everyday people, making a difference for others.
According to his website, Mr. Lewis was born in 1942, and has a twin brother. He has photographs of his life, including his children and grandchildren, as well as activities for children and information for parents. You can find more of his work here: J. Patrick Lewis at Amazon
I am looking forward to reading more of this author's poetry in the future.
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