Write Your Own Haiku for Kids: Write Poetry in the Japanese Tradition - Easy Step-By-Step Instructions to Compose Simple Poems

by Patricia Donegan (Author)

Write Your Own Haiku for Kids: Write Poetry in the Japanese Tradition - Easy Step-By-Step Instructions to Compose Simple Poems
Reading Level: 4th − 5th Grade
*Winner Armed with the Arts Inc. Creative Book Award* In this fun Japanese children's book, kids will learn to create haiku--elegant and simplistic Japanese poems. Haiku is a uniquely Japanese form of poetry that uses vivid words and imagery to capture a feeling or a moment in just three lines. Short but powerful, haiku poems are easy and fun to write and share with your friends. Haiku has become increasingly popular in school curriculums around the world, particularly among teachers introducing students to the art of poetry, as well as Asian history and heritage. The activities in this haiku-for-kids book will show you how to create original haiku and help you to think up meaningful words and images with which you can write beautiful poetry. Write Your Own Haiku For Kids introduces four styles of haiku to readers with clear explanations and numerous examples. This book includes chapters on: Your first haiku--how to get started writing this classic form of poetry Haiku about Nature--a traditional element in haiku Haibun--Haiku with a short story Haiga--Haiku with a drawing Renga--Haiku that you write together with friendsThe study and creation of haiku is a great way to have fun with both writing and reading poetry while exploring remarkable aspects of Japanese culture.
Select format:
Hardcover
$10.99

School Library Journal

Gr 2-5—This wonderful step-by-step guide teaches children and adults about the art of haiku and renga (linked poem). Beginning with simple instructions and advancing on to activities, poetry students can learn and grow from the rich history and examples of thought processes presented here. Donegan dives deep into the technical aspects by providing a handy seven-step checklist: form, image, Kigo (an indication of season), here and now, feeling, surprise, and compassion. The author patiently walks readers through exercises in putting images together, thinking about spacing and word choice, and more. Haiku from master poets, such as Basho, are reproduced throughout the book. Detailed saijiki and shisan charts will be immensely helpful for students ready to take the leap into writing their own verses. The large amount of back matter makes this a wonderful reference book and teaching tool for educators, too. VERDICT A well-constructed and thoughtful guide for fledgling poets. School and classroom libraries will want to purchase.—Elizabeth Speer, Weatherford College, TX

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

"A glossary and a haiku resource guide round out this excellent choice for children as well as teachers seeking fresh materials for poetry units." —Booklist
Patricia Donegan
Patricia Donegan served on the faculty of East-West poetics at Naropa University under Allen Ginsberg and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was a student of haiku master Seishi Yamaguchi, and a Fulbright scholar to Japan. She is a meditation teacher, previous poetry editor for Kyoto Journal, and a longtime member of the Haiku Society of America. Her haiku works include Love Haiku: Japanese Poems of Yearning, Passion & Remembrance (cotranslated with Yoshie Ishibashi), Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart, Haiku: Asian Arts for Creative Kids, and Chiyo-ni Woman Haiku Master (cotranslated with Yoshie Ishibashi). Her poetry collections include: Hot Haiku, Bone Poems, Without Warning, Heralding the Milk Light, and haiku selections in various anthologies.

She won first prize in the 1998 Mainichi International Haiku Contest and won a Merit Book Award for translation from the Haiku Society of America for her book on Chiyo-ni, also in 1998. Her books on haiku have combined scholarship and insight in reaching young and old to inspire and sustain a lifelong interesting in haiku poetry, in both Japanese and English.
Classification
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9780804849296
Lexile Measure
1000
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Tuttle Publishing
Publication date
April 20, 2018
Series
-
BISAC categories
JNF042000 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Poetry | General
JNF029010 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Language Arts | Composition & Creative Writing
JNF050000 - Juvenile Nonfiction | School & Education
JNF021070 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Games & Activities | Word Games
Library of Congress categories
Authorship
Juvenile works
Haiku
Poetry, Japanese

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