Laugh-eteria

As I was cleaning out my storage room, I found one of my favorite books when I was a child. This book is called Laugh-eteria by Douglas Florian. This is a book filled with all kinds of poems. As a child I would stay up way past my bedtime to read these poems. This book belongs in the genre of poetry since the book is filled with poems. All of the poems are filled with expression and creativity.It's one of the best books of poetry that I have read for children. This book has 150 pages of poems for children.It's a great book for children because the poems are funny and very short. Many of the poems have a lot of rhyme and repetition. This is one of the things that children will look for in a poem. There are also many illustrations to go along with each poem. These illustrations are all black and white. They would belong under the style of outline art. The pictures look like they are done by black paint or even a thick marker. I love to read the poems in this book. After finding this book, I had a fun time reading all of the poems. They reminded me how silly poems can be. I think these poems would be a great way to introduce children to poetry.
The first project I would have to go along with this book is to have the children pick one of the poems and have them explain what the poem is about. This can be a very simple activity, as long as the children are really reading the poem. My second activity would be for the children to write their own poems. After writing them they could draw a picture to go with it, so I can hang them up.  An example of a poem from this book is:

The Last Piece of Cake

Whoever ate the last piece of cake,

I hope that you get a bellyache,

Or bit when you sit on a poisonous snake.

Perhaps all the bones in your body will break

When you're crushed to mush in a giant earthquake.

What's that you say?

It was me?

Me who ate the last piece of cake?

My mistake.

Florian, Douglas. Laugh-eteria: poems and drawings. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1999. Print.