The Candy Smash

Home > Contemporary > The Candy Smash > Page 11
The Candy Smash Page 11

by Jacqueline Davies

assonance

  A poetic technique in which the middle sound of a word (usually a vowel) is repeated in words that are next to the word or near it.

  Examples:

  get special letters

  show old jokes

  silly little kids

  cliché

  An overused expression that lacks power because it is so familiar.

  Examples:

  brave as a lion

  the quiet before the storm

  head over heels in love

  consonance

  The repetition of the same sounds (particularly consonants) within words that are nearby.

  Examples:

  fancy ruffled cuffs

  happily playing pandas

  little Italian treats

  hyperbole

  An extremely exaggerated statement.

  Examples:

  She was so scared, she thought she would die.

  I'm starving because I skipped breakfast.

  I've got a ton of homework.

  juxtaposition

  The placement of two very different words or ideas side by side to create a strong sense of contrast (but also connection) between the two.

  Examples:

  My sweet, cuddly puppy has teeth that can tear a shoe to pieces.

  He was the most selfish philanthropist I ever met.

  metaphor

  A figure of speech that says that one thing is another different thing as a way to compare the two and note their similarities.

  Examples:

  My little brother is a fly that keeps buzzing around my head.

  The sunrise was a masterpiece of yellow and orange.

  onomatopoeia

  When a word sounds like the object it names or the sound that object makes.

  Examples: meow, knock knock, squirt

  personification

  Giving lifelike characteristics to an inanimate object or an abstract idea; describing an object as if it were alive.

  Examples:

  The clock on the wall scolded me for being late with its angry tick-tock.

  The flowers danced in the breeze.

  simile

  A comparison of one thing with another using "like" or "as."

  Examples:

  Her shouts were as loud as a trumpeting elephant.

  The daffodils were yellow like melted butter.

  slant rhyme

  Two words that share the same final consonant sound or two words that share the same middle vowel sound. They sound almost like rhyming words, but not quite.

  Examples:

  "Hope" is the thing with feathers –

  That perches in the soul –

  And sings the tune without the words –

  And never stops – at all –

  —Emily Dickinson

  In this example "soul" and "all" create a slant rhyme.

  ***

  Poems

  by E. E. Cummings

  because it'

  Spring

  thingS

  dare to do people

  (& not

  the other way

  round)because it

  's A

  pril

  Lives lead their own

  persons(in

  stead

  of everybodyelse's)but

  what's wholly

  marvellous my

  Darling

  is that you &

  i are more than you

  & i(be

  ca

  us

  e It's we)

  MUSHROOMS

  by Sylvia Plath

  Overnight, very

  Whitely, discreetly,

  Very quietly

  Our toes, our noses

  Take hold on the loam,

  Acquire the air.

  Nobody sees us,

  Stops us, betrays us;

  The small grains make room.

  Soft fists insist on

  Heaving the needles,

  The leafy bedding,

  Even the paving.

  Our hammers, our rams,

  Earless and eyeless,

  Perfectly voiceless,

  Widen the crannies,

  Shoulder through holes. We

  Diet on water,

  On crumbs of shadow,

  Bland-mannered, asking

  Little or nothing.

  So many of us!

  So many of us!

  We are shelves, we are

  Tables, we are meek,

  We are edible,

  Nudgers and shovers

  In spite of ourselves.

  Our kind multiplies:

  We shall by morning

  Inherit the earth.

  Our foot's in the door.

  "Mushrooms" from THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission. For on-line information about any other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at www.randomhouse.com.

  TOAD

  by Valerie Worth

  When the flowers

  Turned clever, and

  Earned wide

  Tender red petals

  For themselves,

  When the birds

  Learned about feathers,

  Spread green tails,

  Grew cockades

  On their heads,

  The toad said:

  Someone has got

  To remember

  The mud, and

  I'm not proud.

  BUG

  by Malik

  I dug a bug from under the rug.

  The bug said hi and looked me in the eye.

  I hugged my bug.

  Bad idea!

  Bye-bye bug.

  FOG

  by Carl Sandburg

  The fog comes

  on little cat feet.

  It sits looking

  over harbor and city

  on silent haunches

  and then moves on.

  COUNTING RIBS

  by Mrs. Overton

  your head

  too weak to lift I

  lay my own alongside

  yours and run my hand

  across the silky familiar side of you

  fingers feeling bone beneath

  one two three

  breathe

  four five six

  please

  seven eight nine

  breathe

  counting to keep my

  eyes from crying my

  heart from breaking

  out

  of its own ribbed cage

  breathe please breathe

  GRANDMA

  by Evan Treski

  a tree(doesn't have)

  knees that creak

  but

  Grandma

  does

  a tree(wouldn't forget)

  my name

  but

  Grandma

  did

  a tree(stands tall)

  and proud

  and good

  and

  Grandma

  is

  a tree

  by E. E. Cummings

  i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

  my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

  i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

  by only me is your doing,my darling)

  i fear

  no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

  no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

  and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

  and whatever a sun will always sing is you

  here is the deepest secret nobody knows

  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life
;which grows

  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

  and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

  PONY GIRL

  by Evan Treski

  pony girl

  flying by

  always late

  lately in my heart

  you laugh your

  happy laugh

  you smile your

  kindly smile

  you gallop past

  me standing still

  dumb struck

  THE QUARREL

  by Eleanor Farjeon

  I quarreled with my brother,

  I don't know what about,

  One thing led to another And somehow we fell out.

  The start of it was slight,

  The end of it was strong,

  He said he was right,

  I knew he was wrong!

  We hated one another.

  The afternoon turned black.

  Then suddenly my brother Thumped me on the back,

  And said, "Oh, come along!

  We can't go on all night—

  I was in the wrong."

  So he was in the right.

  Acknowledgments

  Always, always, and ever again, thanks to my writers' group: Carol Peacock, Sarah Lamstein, Tracey Fern, and Mary Atkinson. A very special thanks to the teachers and students who have taken part in, contributed to, shaped, and brought life to the poetry residency I teach in elementary schools across the country, in particular my friends at Pine Hill Elementary School, who have been getting all jazzed up about poetry with me for almost a decade. I also want to thank Amy Cicala, fourth grade teacher at Hillside Elementary School, for sitting down with me and having a frank and enlightening discussion about love (and other matters) in the fourth grade, and Michael Kascak, principal at Hillside, who shared with me his school (and life) philosophy: "Be kind and do your work." Thanks again to Ryle Sammut, who contributed Evan's handwriting to the artwork in the book, and to Marisa Ih, who came up with the clever title "The Sweet Truth." A mother's thank-you goes to Mae Davies, who wrote me a poem when she was Evan's age that began, "A vase is just a vase / 'Til you put flowers in it." To the "Permissions Mavens" at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who shepherded me through the process of securing permissions for this book—Katie Huha and Mary Dalton-Hoffman—I can only say that I owe you my sanity and I am forever in awe of your abilities. I also bow down before the talented team at HMH who make books appear out of air: the gifted Cara Llewellyn, rock-steady Christine Krones, and nimble Ann-Marie Pucillo. And if at this point in the unwieldy Acknowledgments paragraph I were able to blow a trumpet, shine a spotlight, drop balloons, and strike up a loud brass band, I would do all that to say thank you, thank you, thank you to my editor Ann Rider. i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart).

  Permissions Credits

  "Because it's". Copyright © 1963, 1991 by The Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust, "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in." Copyright 1952, © 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust, from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904–1962 by E.E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

  "The Quarrel" from SILVER SAND AND SNOW by Eleanor Farjeon. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates, London.

  "Mushrooms" from THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

  "Fog" from CHICAGO POEMS by Carl Sandburg, copyright 1916 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston and renewed 1944 by Carl Sandburg, reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  The poem "TOAD" from ALL THE SMALL POEMS AND FOURTEEN MORE © 1994 by Valerie Worth. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

  Imagine if every family in your school read The Lemonade War.

  Together.

  At home.

  At the same time.

  That’s

  One School, One Book.

  The reading program that’s also a community building program

  Find out all about it at www.readtothem.org.

  Join more than 500 member schools and turn yours into a Community of Readers.

  “When a whole school reads a book, there’s a lot to talk about.”

  About the Author

  JACQUELINE DAVIES is the talented, award-winning writer of several novels and picture books. She lives in Needham, Massachusetts, with her family. Visit her website at www.jacquelinedavies.net.

 

 

 


‹ Prev