Flicker Flash (Avenues) - Softcover

Poet, children's book author Joan Bransfield Graham has been widely published in journals, anthologies, textbooks, and magazines.  She's done freelance writing for ABC-TV and The Writer.  Her books for children, Splish Splash and Flicker Flash--shape poems about water and light--inspire students to write their own poetry. Both books were SLJ Best Books of the Year and NCTE Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts, among many other honors.  With musician/composer Sheldon Cohen, she also has a poetry/classical music CD--The Song We Chose to Sing.   
 

"A vivid fusion of ingenious concrete poetry and boldly colored graphics that celebrate the many shapes and forms of light. . . . This one dazzles." School Library Journal, Starred

"There are so many ways to celebrate light, and Graham sings many of them in this collection of shaped, rhymed poems. . . . This will bewitch readers with both sound and shape." Booklist, ALA

"In a follow-up to SPLISH SPLASH, Graham's collection of poems about water, the twenty-three concrete poems in this collection celebrate light in forms familiar to young children, such as a lightning bolt, a porch light, birthday candles, a refrigerator light, the sun, and the full moon. Graphic design is the outstanding feature here, as the typography is skillfully used to intensify the shapes of the poems, not only with size and placement but with color as well, so that the words themselvesbecome part of the surrounding illustration. The words of the poem "Flashlight," for example, are printed boldly in yellow, and each line grows progressively larger to reflect the flashlight beam extending from the hand of a child walking through the dark: "Flashlight / click / one flick / I am the SUN, / I chase the shadows / one by one, growing scary, / jagged, tall-with brilliant beams / I'll MELT them ALL!" Because seeing the poems here is at least as important as hearing them, this volume should have particular appeal to visual learners." Horn Book