Winner of the 2010 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and multiple starred reviews from journals, Button Up! is a collection of poems told from the perspective of articles of clothing that are surprisingly articulate and witty. The illustrations by Mathers depict animal characters as the clothing owners and add detail and humor to Schertle's verses.
All of the poems use rhyme and a strong rhythm that make the poems interesting to read aloud. Repetition and refrain are also frequently employed in the collection. The language is appealing, full of enthusiasm and humor. Even when the articles of clothing take their jobs seriously, the whimsy involved in the concept, illustrations, and poetic language make these poems uniformly entertaining and engaging.
Each poem is titled with the owner's name and the article of clothing and is listed in a table of contents to provide access points into the text. Each poem gets a two-page spread for poem text and illustrations.
Featured poem:
Joshua's Jammies
We are the jammies that Joshua wears,
not jammies for penguins,
not jammies for bears,
not jammies for tigers with knots in their tails,
not jammies for chickens,
not jammies for whales,
not jammies for elephants going upstairs,
we are the jammies that Joshua wears.
We don't fit iguanas,
we're not for the gnu,
we won't suit the llamas
(they never wear blue).
Hippopotamus can't get us over his head.
We're JOSHUA's jammies. We're going to bed.
Although the illustrations add such an interesting element to the poem, I would share this poem without showing the illustration to the students. After reading the poem several times and possibly provided a copy of the text, I would ask students to illustrate this poem. After students have envisioned their own drawings for the poem, I will share Mather's pictures and compare them to the student's works. We will discuss how the illustrations affect the meaning of the poem.
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