Dirty Laundry Pile

LS 5663 Module 2 (1/3)

Bibliography:

Janeczko, Paul B., and Melissa Sweet. Dirty Laundry Pile : Poems in Different Voices. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. ISBN 0-688-16251-7

Summary:

2019 NCTE award winning poet, Paul B Janeczko complied 27 poems to create this creative anthology. There is a wide variety of poets including some very familiar names such as Marilyn Singer and Jane Yolen. The poems in the collection are all “persona” or “mask” poems written in the voice of non-human objects. This book is perfect for elementary school aged students but can be enjoyed by all ages.

Analysis:

The cover of Dirty Laundry Pile is very eye catching for a young reader. The cover art is colorful and features young children playing in a pile of dirty laundry. The inside jacket is a letter to the reader telling them that the book will be different than any they have read before. It is a fun device to get the reader excited. The book contains an introduction from Janeczko that explains how he choose the poems in the book. Each page features a poem, its author and an illustration. Every poem is incorporated into the illustrations, sometimes the words flow with the pictures to add a fun detail. The voices of the poems range from animals to bacteria in food. Most titles tell the reader who the “writer” is although a few like I’m Up Here and Job Satisfaction has the reader guessing. There are some poems that rhyme and some that emphasize words with line breaks. There is a poem called Washing Machine that is filled with fun onamonapias. I had a really hard time picking a poem to feature because so many would be loved by students. I finally choose The Mosquito’s Song because not only was it creative and fun to read, the style is eye catching. The illustration features a boy staring crossed eyed at a mosquito on his nose.

Activity:

Most elementary school aged students hate a rainy day. Especially when it means indoor recess. I would use this book as a way to get them to look at a raindrop differently. The raindrop had no intention of ruining their day. But what does it want? Does it dream of watering flowers or landing I a pool? Does it have nightmares of landing in a dog bowl or the sewer? As a class, brainstorm different dreams of a raindrop to write a poem of their own in the voice of a raindrop.