Wednesday, October 9, 2013


The Newberry Library in Chicago has actively collected research and reference materials since its foundation in 1887.  From the mid-1890s on, its collecting activities have focused on the humanities, with an emphasis on original sources for the study of European and Western Hemisphere history, literature, and culture since the late medieval period.  The Newberry has also continued to build its collection of secondary books – including reference works, monographs, periodicals, and other serials – and more recently digitized reproductions to support the use of its original sources.  Today, the library’s evolving collections include more than 1.5 million books, five million manuscript pages (15,000 cubic feet), and 500,000 historic maps.  Link to recent acquisitions, history, timeline and core collections at:  http://www.newberry.org/collection-history   The Newberry Library is named for Walter Loomis Newberry (1804-1868), American businessman and philanthropist.
 
The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year.  On June 22, 1921, Frederic G. Melcher proposed the award to the American Library Association meeting of the Children's Librarians' Section and suggested that it be named for the eighteenth-century English bookseller John Newbery.  http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/aboutnewbery/aboutnewbery 

Poetry for two or more voices has been around a long time.  It works for adults as well as children.  Sometimes the words suggest that one reader is male and the other female.  Try some of these poems for family fun or for reading and language projects in the classroom or during volunteer activities.
Poet Mary Ann Hoberman is the author of the picture book You Read to Me, I'll Read to You, which includes the joyful illustrations of Michael Emberley.  The contains very short story poems for two people to read aloud, alternately and together.  Each of the 12 stories for 8-12 year olds features rhythm, rhyme, and repetition, as well as humor and an emphasis on the joys of reading.  The book, one of a series, is designed to be read aloud by two people, as if, says Hoberman, it's "a little play for two voices."  (Little Brown & Co., 2001.  ISBN:  9780316363501)  
The entertaining sounds of insects fill these poems by Paul Fleischman, making Joyful Noise a favorite with 9-14 year olds. These poems were written to be read aloud by two readers with, according to Fleischman, “the two parts meshing as in a musical duet.” Ken Nutt’s artwork, full page, detailed pencil illustrations, are dramatic and effective complements to the poetry, which brings insects to life when read aloud by two voices.  (HarperCollins, 1988.  ISBN:  0060218525)
Poems for four voices are much more challenging to present than poems for two voices, but middle school students tend to relish the challenge. The three story poems in Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices, “The Quiet Evenings Here,” “Seventh-Grade Soap Opera,” and “Ghosts’ Grace” will appeal to middle schoolers. The author, Paul Fleischman, provides a clear description of how to use the book. The poems are color-coded to make them easier for the four readers to determine their parts.  (Candlewick Press, 2000.  ISBN:  0763606367)
These fifteen poems for two voices in I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices are all about birds, from the phoenix and albatross to sparrows and owls. Ken Nutt’s soft pencil illustrations complement the poems by Paul Fleischman. The words of each poems are in two columns, each to be read by one person, sometimes individually, sometimes together. I recommend it for upper elementary and middle school students. (Harper & Row, 1985.  ISBN:  9780064460927)
http://childrensbooks.about.com/od/poetry/tp/poemsfor2.htm 

The phoenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, and (according to Sanchuniathon) Phoenicians.  A phoenix is a mythical bird that is a fire spirit with a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet (or purple, blue, and green according to some legends).  It has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again.  The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self.  In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of its old self in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis (literally "sun-city" in Greek).  It is said that the bird's cry is that of a beautiful song.  The phoenix's ability to be reborn from its own ashes implies that it is immortal, though in some stories the new phoenix is merely the offspring of the older one.  In very few stories they are able to change into people.  Read Ovid's and Voltaire's words on the phoenix and link to more information at:  http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Phoenix_(mythology).html 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
lapsus linguae (LAP-suhs LING-gwee, LAHP-soos LING-gwy)  noun   slip of the tongue.
From Latin lapsus linguae (slip of the tongue).  Earliest documented use:  1668.
Malapropisms and spoonerisms are two examples of lapsus linguae.  And here is an example of a lapsus linguae which cost a game show contestant a potential one-million-dollar prize:  http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/09/19/pronunciation-fail-costs-guy-1-million-prize-on-wheel-of-fortune/.  A lapsus calami is a slip of the pen.
paregmenon  (puh-REG-muh-non) noun
The juxtaposition of words that have the same roots.  Examples:  sense and sensibility, a manly man, the texture of textile.  From Greek paregmenon, from paragein (to bring side by side).  Earliest documented use:  1577.

The Art of Cookery In Imitation of HORACE's Art of Poetry by William King (extract)
Tables shou'd be like Pictures to the Sight, 
Some Dishes cast in Shade, some spread in Light,
 
Some at a distance brighten, some near hand,
 
Where Ease may all their Delicace command:
 
Some shou'd be mov'd when broken, others last
 
Thro' the whole Treat, incentive to the Taste.
 

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