Barbara Juster EsbensenCritiques

The book has a lot of haikus poems. I've never heard of this book before or the author. It has a lot of good poems about childhood discoveries in their day to day life. I think that's what I like the most that it shows how a child is discovering new things and allowing them to think and incorporate real life things into their life.

Great variety of poems!

A collection of poems about childhood discoveries concerning everyday objects and things. I have never heard of this children's poetry book before today.

Very simple book.

10 copies

Introduces the elusive loon, one of the most primitive birds in North America.

In this book, the author uses clever poetry and haikus to turn talking about household items into a fun experience that serves an educational purpose as well. This book is great for first and second grade students learning to read and developing their new skills, as the poetry present flows easy and can help with students reading aloud to improve their listening and comprehension skills.

This book is composed of different poems of different subjects. The subjects all have to do with art and expressing once self through the poems. This can be part of a lesson of rhythm and rhyme and many more.

I really enjoyed this book. I think the style of writing is very unique and something I haven't seen much of before. I love animals so I was able to find this extremely interesting. The way the poetry describes the animals and the words that label the animals is also very unique but also very entertaining for any age group. I loved this book.

This book is full of beautiful images of the different looks of the northern lights. I found it interesting that’s every time the sky had a different look there was a short folklore about why that natural occurrence occurs. One of my favorite examples was the large whales in the sky blowing water into the sky forming the aurora borealis.

The poems in this book make me feel like I am actually using my 5 senses to read them. They make me feel like they are so true that I was shaking my head in agreement with the one about Frog. I thought that these were great descriptive poems that could help with descriptive writing - something that I struggle with myself. It might help a student start to think about descriptions better. I would keep this book in my classroom library fro student to refer to and read for enjoyment.

Poems including animals and different things about them. Good for younger kids.

Words with wrinkled knees is a good poetry book for children. It has different poems about different animals. The grade level for this book is 2-4.

This is a book filled with poems on animals and has great words! These poems would work for any elementary level reader and are a fun way to learn poetry.

“Baby Whales Drink Milk” is a scientifically accurate book about whales. It discusses the many different aspects about whales and how they live their daily lives. It addresses the fact that whales are unlike fish despite the fact that they share the same habitat. They are mammals who give birth to their babies and feed them milk. The children will love the fact page because it shares interesting ideas about all different kind of whales. The story is simplistically written, but is quite hearty. It contains a large amount of information that keeps the children interested in reading. The illustrations are well done, and are quite accurate, which makes it an appropriate piece to share with a class. The children can increase their comprehension skills while increasing their scientific knowledge. All together it is a great book to share with students because it is covers many academic bases in one activity. This book is great if you are doing a unit on sea life. You can also use this to help children learn how to compare and contrast, and in this case fish vs. whales.

This book was great nonfiction book about whales that I paired with a fiction book about a whale. The book gave lots of good whale facts about what they eat, what they do, and how they survive in ocean. Also, the book showed the wide variety of different whale species. The illustrations were nice and helped you visualize the information. This book would be appropriate for any elementary student.

"The Star Maiden" is a native american legend about the origin of the water lily flower. In this tale, a maiden in the stars speaks to a member of the tribe through his dreams and these conversations lead to a connection between the maiden and the tribe, with whom she creates a new home for herself. The language is old-fashioned, almost as if someone wrote it down as someone was telling it to them. "The Star Maiden" is a very lovely tale about where water lilies come from and why we have them.

This poetry book is a collection of twenty different poems by Barbara Juster Esbensen. This poetry collections is strictly about wild animals ranging from a giant elephant all the way to a graceful tiny hummingbird. The first thing that I noticed about this collection is that none of the poems rhymed. Of course this is not uncommon in poetry but I believe for children's poetry that it is. Rhyming is a way of keeping children entertained while reading poetry. In lieu of rhyming for entertainment, the poems are visually entertaining. Some of the words are exaggerated and big, some of them are spread out letter by letter and some words are going across the page. For example, when Esbensen wrote about the seahorse, every time she wrote the word "seahorse," she wrote it vertically because seahorses swim vertically. This book is great because many kids know what these animals are but do not know what they are really known for. This book tells the readers all the special qualities that these animals have and what they can do. This book is also great for kids because while some of the illustrations are just silly, like the giraffe in the library, most of them show the readers the habitats of the animals, like the camel in desert and seahorse hanging on some coral.

This story is about a tribe who has this interest in a star. As this star comes down to Earth, known as the Star Maiden, she tries to find a place to stay but everywhere she goes she is bothered by things on Earth. Then water lilies are created for her to reside and this is how the flower comes about. I would read this book to my students to further their education on folktales and Native American culture.½

The Two-Word Strategy: Nature and Poetry: I chose these words because through poetry we are given this amazing perspective on nature. With every line and stanza, we see how the wonderful world we live in is full of patterns and secrets that we get to uncover. The poetry meanders across the page like the meandering river and stretches out like the branches of a tree.

The book is about the poems of discovery, and describe the universally experienced by children.

Cheetahs are the fastest animals in the world. This book is jam packed with facts all pertaining to the amazing animal. It describes the cheetah from its looks to how they raise their young. The illustrations are great and detailed. This book would be great to read when wanting to learn more about cheetahs or for a science project.½

"No animal anywhere on earth can outrun" a cheetah. Reaching speeds of 65 miles per hour, it is the fastest land animal. That is only one of the remarkable facts about this majestic creature found in this book.
Gorgeous pictures accompany the informational text about cheetahs, from their speed to how they care for their young.

It's so typical that nothing pleases the Star Maiden. It's a common problem among we humans- we aren't pleased with anything we have. I'm glad that she found solace, though.

A spend on Mr. sandman bring me a dream. Good story before bed time. Helps set an illusion of how dreams come to us in our sleep.