BookSpeak! Poems About Books
21 wild, wacky, and winsome poems celebrate books and even let them tell their own stories.
Characters plead for sequels, book jackets strut their stuff, and a raucous party starts when the lights go out at the bookstore! If you’re a book lover, don’t miss this collection! It’s a love letter to books and stories, written in many poetic forms and featuring the awesome collage art of Josée Bisaillon.
Author: Laura Purdie Salas
Illustrator: Josée Bisaillon
Publisher: Clarion Books, 2011
ISBN: 978-0547223001
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Awards & Recognition
- Minnesota Book Award
- NCTE Notables
- Bank Street Best Books
- Librarians’ Choice
- Eureka! Gold Medal
- Honor Book – Gelett Burgess Award
- White Ravens
- Nerdy Book Award
- One of Book Riot’s 50 Must-Read Poetry Books for Kids
Book Trailer
Booktalk by Barbara Ward
More videos:
- Watch Laura read “This Is the Book”
- Watch Laura read “Hydrophobiac”
- Watch Laura accept the Minnesota Book Award (so nervous!)
- Watch teachers perform “Calling All Readers!”
FREE Downloadables
Reviews & More
- Nerdy Book Club review: “Can we declare an official book for the Nerdy Book Club, please? If we did, it would be BookSpeak! a delightful and smart poetry collection reveling in all things bookish from readers and writers to literary elements.”
- BCCB review: “…there’s an inviting mix of forms from free verse to acrostic to rhyming, and the verses are clever in their approach and concept; kids will giggle at the notion of a come-hither index or an argument between the book’s beginning, middle, and end (“a poem for three voices,” of course).”
- School Library Journal review: “The poems are, by turns, philosophical, humorous, and even instructional…This is an appealing offering that will be especially popular with librarians.”
- Publishers Weekly review: “Salas’s polished verse demonstrates a deep love for all aspects of books, from their content to their creators, and she’s not above using a touch of guilt to get her audience invested: “If a book remains unopened/ and no reader turns its page,/ does it still embrace a story/ or trap words inside a cage?””
- Many more reviews and blog posts here!
How BookSpeak! Began
I was invited to submit some poems to an anthology of poems about books. I set out to write one or two poems, but I couldn’t stop! Books are some of my favorite things! None of the poems ended up in that wonderful anthology, but my editor at Clarion loved them and decided they would make a great book of their own.
Sample Poems
Cliffhanger
I’m on a cliff–
far down I see
sharp rocks jut out,
waves wait for me.
I feel the edge
beneath my toe.
It’s crumbling from
the harsh wind’s blow.
Is this the end?
This breath my last?
Please, author, write
a sequel fast!
–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
Book Plate
I don’t need your napkin.
I’m not your soup bowl’s mate.
I don’t want your peas or bread.
I’m not that kind of plate!
Write your name upon me.
I’m a paper love tattoo.
Paste me in your book to show
that I belong to you.
–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
Illustrator Josée Bisaillon
Josée Bisaillon is the fabulous French-Canadian artist who made all the illustrations for BookSpeak! She mixed collage, drawing, and digital montage techniques to create the images in this book. I love how varied her art is! Just like different parts of a book have individual voices in my collection of poems, Josée′s images are all vibrant and glorious, and very distinct–different from each other. To see more of Josée’s art, visit her website.