No More Homework! No More Tests!

Lansky, B. (1997).  No more homework! No more tests!. New York:  Meadowbrook Press.

No More Homework! No More Tests! by Bruce Lansky is a children’s poetry book that is full of many hilarious poems.  This book definitely is fitting for this week’s genre, poetry, because it contains many lyrics, quatrains, cinquains, and narrative poems that is full of rhythm and rhyme.  Bruce Lansky selected a list of outstanding poets and their wonderful poems and placed them inside this book.  The authors range from Bruce Lansky, Max Fatchen, Bill Dodds, Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, some anonymous authors as well, and many more. 

As I was reading this book, I found many poems that I plan on using in my classroom.  One of my absolute favorites was a cinquain called English Is a Pain! (Pane?) It is a five stanza poem with five lines per stanza written by Shirlee Curlee Bingham.  I plan on using this poem to teach homophones and rhyme scheme.  It has an aabca rhyme scheme because lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme. 

Another poem that I really appreciated and made a connection with was a narrative called My Dog Chewed Up My Homework by Bruce Lansky. This poem is full of rhythm and rhyme.  The second and fourth lines rhymed because they had the same consonant sounds such as night and sight.  The connection that I made with this poem isn’t as a child but as an adult educator.  I was grading my students’ tests and my very mischievous puppy decided that she needed something to chew on, so she chewed on the corner of one of their papers.  My student really enjoyed the story! 

 

Finally, another poem that I would like to share is titled Gloria because it is full of hyperboles.  A hyperbole is an exaggeration or to point out ridicoulousness.  Some hyperbole examples found within this poem are, "She had at least a million friends" and "Got a king-sized zit". 

 

If you choose to check out this book, I hope you enjoy as much as I have! I think this book would inspire many children to reach into their imagination and create poetry as well as these great authors.  It makes me wonder, where did these authors get their inspiration?