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2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Discerning English Teacher Motivates Students! Jan 07, 2010
It's not often that students, especially middle school students, ask their teacher to read poems from a selected book. It's even more unusual when adolescents write in response, unsolicited, to poems they've been exposed to. With Coolhead Luke and Other Stories by Jennifer Lasker White and Colin White, I am batting 1000! As an English teacher I am always on the look-out for engaging and entertaining poetry books, especially for boys. The entertaing illustrations and complimentary poems in Coolhead Luke are delightful, charming and fun! Students relate to the ideas presented in the poems. In addition, the vocabulary that White uses in her poems is stimulating and challenging. I have created a variety of lessons using poems from this book to teach students different literary devices such as alliteration, personification, similes, metaphors and imagery. My students have responded very favorably to this book and lessons related to the poems. It doesn't get much better than that! I'm looking forward to the next poetry/art book by the White Team!
Reina O'Connor
Middle School ELA & World Literature Teacher
Advanced Math & Science Academy
Marlborough, MA
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Entertaining and packed with excitement Jul 12, 2008
Entertaining and packed with excitement the compilation offered on the pages of Coolhead Luke is intended for the middle grade reader. Writer White is a media consultant who strings words together for pleasure. In the back of the volume she incorporate a Glossary of expressions relating to poetry along with a collection of optional questions for teachers to use with groups of children.
Laughable compositions having titles which include -Coolhead Luke-, -Ebenezer Nooze-, and -The Eyes Have It- set the tone for this work of verses and whimsical imagery. While aboard the -Freaky Bus- the reader will meet Old Baldy Bob, whose nose is gigantic, Stretch Joe whose neck is eight feet tall or so, as well as Bewildered Bill and Eraser Head McGee. Other verse lead the reader to a serpent hat, the King of Mud or even a cuddly Cyclops.
The commencement of the book includes the writer's notes to parents as poet White explains how at an early age her illustrator son Colin was interested in faces. Even as a very young toddler Colin started to become aware of faces in the outlines on curtains or leaves on trees. He began sketching faces at age two.
As his depictions progressed the writer noticed the representation seemed to have a tale to tell, thus the stanzas to go together with the illustrations was born.
Professor Bickle, we realize is in a pickle for the reason that he has a mouse who is fickle. A Motley Three is made of up of she, he and me. We have Lunch with the Mussies. And, we discover, nothing upsets Coolhead Luke.
Illustrator White is an upper middle grade student in Massachusetts where he goes on with producing drawings and other art work.
In concert, the White team of Mother and son, have created a characteristic and thought-provoking anthology of verse and art. Writer White tells the reader that the drawings set down on the pages of Coolhead Luke were fashioned by Colin when he was ten years old.
I have found my own class of students take pleasure in poetry. I like the addition of the glossary explaining Haiku, Rhyming Couplets, Rhyme Scheme and Structure along with Limericks. Following the glossary are helpful suggestions telling how to locate some of the poetic forms in the works offered on the pages of the book.
While my First Grade students are a bit young to truly understand the whimsy found in Illustrator White's work, they do take pleasure in the tempo and pulse of the poems themselves as they listen while I read the verses aloud. We often sing My Country Tis of Thee as one element of our daily opening exercise and after I read Coolhead Luke are learning to sing My Country's Teeth I See for the fun of it.
Target audience is middle grade and older readers. Interesting work produced by Mother and son White family members, happy to recommend for the personal pleasure reading collection, as well as classroom, school and public library collections.
Molly Martin
Reviewer
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Coolhead for Cool Families Jun 25, 2007
This is a great book! The illustrations by Colin White are original and sometimes profoundly insightful. The poems by his mother, Jen Lasker White, perfectly match the style, intent and wit of Colin's art work. Although this book is fun for everyone, books of poems that boys love are few and far between. This one truly delights and inspires my 10 year old son. And that ain't easy! Kudos to Jen and Colin!
Leslie O'Flaherty, writer, poet, singer, teacher
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
For every Mother who loves her son Jun 24, 2007
I read this book with my 8 year old son who LOVED it. The pictures remind my son of the silly books he likes to read. The poems that go with the pictures could not be more clever. Seriously!! We have our favorites picked out but found them all to be great fun.
The idea that this was written by a mother connecting to her son's art work is what clinched it. Something about that bond that speaks volumes.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Coolhead Luke Jun 24, 2007
Coolhead Luke is a fabulous collaborative effort between mother and son.
The son's wildly insightful drawings are perfectly matched by his mother's
lyrical verse-stories that delight with intelligence, insight, plain fun,
and wise moral endings outside of any overt religious bias. This is a
5-star book for middle-school kids and every imaginable adult! Read it out
loud (as all poetry should be read) and find yourself belly-laughing while
caught in the nets of surprisingly delightful insights in rhyme.
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