Leland B. Jacobs (1907–1992)

Summary:

This book is an ABC's book. It is written as poetry. Each page has a poem dedicated to a letter. The poems integrate the girl theme by only talking about girls whose first names start with that letter. The topics of the poems include: birthdays, playing house, dressing up , arguing, playing games, and many others specifically tailored to girls.

Review:

This book has many good things but caution is required. The poems in the book in general are very good. They are well thought out. show more some of them are serious and some are very humorous. A few of them even manage to teach an important lesson in only a few short lines. The book even has some nice sentiments in it. However because of the theme of the book I think the perpetuation of stereotypes can be perpetuated by it. The book has a very old fashioned idea of what a girl should and should not be(pretty, gentle, calm, clean, and nice not athletic, smart , etc). show less

Review: Just Around the Corner is a collection of poems about the seasons. The poems are broken down by the seasons of Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. For each season there are about five to eight short and simple poems. The poems cover various topics that characterize each season.

Personal Response: I liked this book. The poems were very simple and easy enough for preschoolers to follow. The pictures were colorful and animated.

Classroom Extention:
1. Children will create a "seasonal" show more collage of which ever season you're in.

2. (The poem titled Shadows)Children will do shadow tracing outside. show less

Oh dear. Just, ah, lame. Sorry. I often like these older collections, but this one just fails, imo. Cartoony, amateurish illustrations. Twee fairies. Most poems credited to Anonymous or Old Rhyme. None I'd care to reread or share, except that by [a:William Allingham|433409|William Allingham|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1446662764p2/433409.jpg] which is an excerpt published in many other collections: "Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen..."

Alphabet of Girls goes from A to Z in a series of animated poems about what makes each individual girl uniques. Each set has a ryhme and a rythmn to it. Goes from Arabella and Ann playin house to Jill and Josephine walk in the rain to Yolanda dancing like a butterfly.
My girls loved hear this one. All the girls were differnt in their own way as were the poems that described them. Some of the poetry ryhmed others just had a distinct rythmn. It told the tale of several little girls and the show more mischeif they can get in , which mine related to really well.
In a classroom setting I might keep a box of pretend laying around to act out seom of the parts. For example if Jennifer and Jane were walking in the rain -they used an umbrella. OR another alternative to engulf them into the story would be to clap along with the rythmn. show less