Lemonade & Other Poems Squeezed from One Word by Bob Raczka

Summary from Dust Jacket: Part anagram, part rebus, part riddle--these poems capture a scene from a child's daily life and present a puzzle to solve. Sometimes sweet and sometimes funny, but always clever, these poems are fun to read and even more fun for kids to write. Bob Raczka is a fresh, new voice in children's poetry who knows that fun and games can turn a poetry lesson into lemonade!

What I thought: This is such a great idea for a poetic form. I remember getting worksheets in elementary school where we had to make words out of the letters in a phrase like "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Valentine's Day." The only catch was we couldn't use the letter more times than they appeared in the phrase. Raczka allows the double and even triple use of letters. I'm itching to try this new form myself. I think the hardest part is choosing a word. My favorite poems are "Moonlight," "Constellation," "Halloween," and "Spaghetti." I notice that most of the words Raczka uses have more than one syllable. Perhaps that's where I should start.


(Illus. Nancy Doniger. Roaring Brook Press, 2011)