Happiest of Holidays

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope all of you have a splendid holiday.

I've mentioned many of the books I finished in 2007 on the blog, but some grown-up titles I look forward reading to are

The Art of Simple Food, by Alice Waters

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, by Alex Ross

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, by Maryanne Wolf

Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, by Mark Doty (April 2008)

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, by Natalie Angier


Poetry Friday: "You Can, Toucan, Math"

19193 Colorful birds star in a book billed (ha) on the cover as "word problem-solving fun." You Can, Toucan, Math, a book of rhyming math questions, puts all those boring, poorly copied worksheets to shame.

You can probably tell  from the cover that Edward Miller's illustrations are a hoot; the bright hues used on the pages and in the illustrations illuminate flamingos, pelicans, chickens, and black-bellied plovers, just to name a few, as they pose for various equations. The top-notch graphic design adds the right note of whimsy to David A. Adler's poems. For the young readers who may need reminders, the author explains adding, multiplying, subtracting, and dividing on the second page. Another plus is that children will pick up a little nature lore along the way. You Can, Toucan, Math would make a great gift for first, second, and third grade classrooms—and for your home, too.

Liz B. at the Tea Cozy has the Poetry Friday roundup today.