Boom! Bellow! Bleat!: Animal Poems for Two or More Voices

When I was a lit coach, I took a suitcase of musical things like different clackers and horns, a small drum, and so on to liven up our poetry writing. Oh, how I wish I had had this new poetry book to Boom! Bellow! Bleat! with the kids. It's a new delight by Georgia Heard with "out loud" collaged illustrations by Aaron DeWitt. It can be read, as the cover says, by two or more voices, and I found it wonderful to read with my youngest granddaughter, an emerging reader. Serendipitously, we had just visited our zoo and came home to read this new book together. It opens with a fun page of "Animal Songs" including Alligators that Hiss, all the way to Humans, who Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk, etc. It also includes frogs who don't say "Ribbit!", instead, they quonk, waaa, jug-a-rum, beeeee, peep, twaang, errrrgh, growl, trill, and yeeeeeoooow. There was much to learn about frogs (and toads) just from this page. Imogene loves insects and her favorite page is the honeybees, who bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz as they perform all their other tasks.In addition to the poetic text, Georgia has included small bits of information for some of the animals. And added at the back is expanded information in a "Nature's Notes" section.Each page's text are in blue, red and sometimes black (for that third voice). It was great fun to read aloud. For groups, a page titled "Forest Orchestra" gives instruction and a script for fourteen parts to perform together. She includes tips like "Keep in mind that animals have adapted different sound tones so when singing together they don't drown each other out." From large to small, land to ocean, animals Boom! Bellow! Bleat and more. One only needs to listen!

My kids love this book! The illustrations are amazing and poems are adorable.. we love reading it!

First, a full disclosure: I am going to gush over this new poetry collection because it is by one of the many gentle, poetic, encouraging voices who have supported me for so very long that I don't even know what I do to remain in the company of such fine, fine people. Georgia Heard is one of these. And, now, let the gushing commence.Calling all animal lovers, young and old!The cover art alone here gives us two mini-lessons in alliteration and onomatopoeia (by the way, did you realize that the "poeia" part of this word is the root from which we get poetry? We literally make poetry by way of creating and imitating sounds that we hear and vocalizing them in this case wrapping our made-up language from the world around us).BOOM! BELLOW! BLEAT! would fit nicely in those shares of Fleishman's poems for two voices titles like JOYFUL NOISE and PHOENIX RISING. Classroom teachers offering nature units could look within the pages of Heard's book to look for animal types and groupings including biospheres and habitats to work in individual poems from the collection.Heard offers a Performance Key before the collection begins to guide readers who might not be accustomed to choral readings to find their feet (and their parts and voices) within the poetry for two or more voices form.Poems like "We Don't Say Ribbit" invite readers to push on the traditional answer to "What does a frog say?" by introducing readers to the research-based sounds made by different frogs and toads.And, if the response to the question, "What does a fish say?" is met with silence in the room, "Noisy Fish" provides more than one answer followed by a choral imperative of the room above the water line to the boisterous school of fish found upon the page."You Can't See Us, but You Can Hear Us' brings the not-often-seen Peeper into the room and invites reading in the round.Just in case we're looking for a way to incorporate math into our poetry lessons (and we want to work in a little cricket chirping trivia), "Cricket Arithmetic: Three Haiku" not only introduces readers to the poetic form, it asks the reader to note the temperature based upon the number of chirps following the haiku.With variation in form and approach to the reading, Heard has created a most lively collection of poems. The poem I like best with the first reading (and I would love to hear a classroom perform this piece) is "Forest Orchestra" wherein the poet/researcher Heard teaches us about the different animals we might hear within a forest and assigns a tone to birds (highest), insects (middle), and mammals (lowest). I can only imagine what this might sound like as lively young readers render the voices of a lively forest.For the classroom teacher or librarian offering smaller units regarding nature and animal life, the possibilities for rehearsed, choral readings abound here. Student groups could be selected to look at poems ahead of time and practice a showcase reading of a piece. Small groups of students could serve as "Greek Chorus" to read the "human lines" of some of the pieces.Idea: I'd love to see a group of young readers do a showcase reading of Heard's new book. If not this year, next. I can only imagine what a "hoot" this would be.Heard's "Nature Notes" as epitext for the collection presents a paragraph of nonfiction reading for each of the animal subjects presented within the book.I cannot always afford all of the great poetry that is released for younger readers. I am indebted, here, to Random Penguin House who sent this title to me to share with social media friends and Room 407.

Love this book! I originally bought this the library I work for. I checked it out and took it home my 16 month old. My husband and I read it to my son, he loves this book. He likes that both parents are reading to him from one page, and he’s super engaged with the illustrations. Best poetry book for little people!!