Books like The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems
By Paul B. Janeczko
For the kid who wants a manual for absolutely everything, from pancakes to monsters to falling snow, this collection turns instructions into something worth savoring line by line. Quiet, playful, observant — like a field guide written by poets.
Monarch butterflies leave Canada each fall and fly all the way to Mexico, crossing snow-capped mountains and deserts to reach the forests their ancestors once called home.
A young Chinese American girl notices color everywhere in her everyday world, from red dragons and firecrackers to lychees, and brown in her own teddy bear.
Four tiny eggs hatch into hungry caterpillars, who eat, grow, and eventually transform inside their chrysalises into full-grown butterflies ready to fly free.
A tour through the natural world reveals how seeds travel to new ground — riding ocean waves, rolling in dung beetle balls, or drifting away on the wind.
A cumulative garden poem grows one flower at a time — marigolds, pansies, tulips, sunflowers — with each verse adding another bloom and a small surprise.
A student gets stuck with a science curse after his teacher claims poetry is everywhere in science, and suddenly every rhyme in his head turns into a poem about amoebas, black holes, or the food chain.
A brilliant astronomer turns his telescope to the night sky and discovers that the earth circles the sun — a truth so radical it puts him at odds with the powerful people of his time.
Two curious kids set off on a wonder walk through nature, asking playful questions about the world — is the sun a light bulb, is dirt the earth's skin — and seeing everything anew.
A meadow comes alive as mother animals — from one mother turtle to ten mother fireflies — count out their babies through a gentle rhyming verse.
An imaginative boy dreams up the ultimate house, sketching in a racetrack, a flying playroom, and a gigantic slide as his ideas grow wilder with every rhyme.
A boy with a summer to fill decides to grow his own civilization from scratch, planting a mystery crop that towers over him and ends up supplying food, clothing, shelter, and games.
A collection of poems invites young readers through seven die-cut doorways into moods and moments — a dragon piñata, an alligator on the A train, a hungry yeti — turning everyday feelings into flights of imagination.
