Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry: How to Write a Poem

by Jack Prelutsky

Book Overview

Have you ever tried to write a poem about a pizza? How about a pig? How about a pigeon, penguin, potato, Ping-Pong, parrot, puppy, pelican, porcupine, pie, pachyderm, or your parents? Jack Prelutsky has written more than one thousand poems about all of these things--and many others. In this book he gives you the inside scoop on writing poetry and shows you how you can turn your own experiences and stories about your family, your pets, and your friends...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061434493
• ISBN13: 9780061434495
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 7 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Grades 2 to 5

Customer Reviews

All petry writing kids (and grownups) need this book!

Nobody better than the best to teach kids (and some grownups who are smart enough to read this book) how to write great poems. Using examples from his best-selling poetry books (New Kid on the Block, Something Big Has Been Here, a Pizza the Size of the Sun and lots more), Prelutsky takes writers through the steps of finding ideas, shaping them into poems, how to write about people using real life as a source, crafting punchy endings, and the reason for rhyme. It's a terrific guide for all ages, but aimed squarely at kids. There are writing exercises as well as entertaining and enlightening stories to get writers feeling great about poems that are waiting, just waiting for them to write them. A short glossary and some informal construction tips on repetition, meter, puns, rhyme, and even non-rhyming poems really make this a great textbook for teaching poetry without any pretense. For adults who want to write poetry--for kids or not--this is a terrific tool to start with. A short index to poems used in the text concludes the book.

Fun for adults, too!

Prelutsky hits the funny bone right on again. This collection is as full of fun and musings to tickle the fancy as any of the others this award-winning poet has written. Few other poets today will take the time to show children how to write for fun and give them examples that will make sense to them. The bonus is that it is equally helpful to aspiring adult-poets as well. Delightful to see someone having a good time with what is too often taught in a strait-laced manner.

My 7 year old LOVES this book!

Santa gave this to my daughter .. she was not impressed at first, just a book, ho hum. Then she started reading it, and giggling, and reading more, and loves it so much it is now her Favorite Book Ever. I plan to buy his new book this month. My daughter is 7, I think that is the perfect age for fantasy and poetry!

Great for elementary school children

We left "Pizza, Pigs and Poetry" lying out in the open for our three granddaughters(ages 9, 11 & 13)to discover--which they did. Within a day or so, they were writing their own short poems--much of it very good. We made no effort to teach them nor did we encourage them. They received all the needed encouragement and help from the book. Within a short time, the poems got longer and better--more substantive, more perceptive. I suspect that the most important aspect of the book is getting the child over the fear of writing. It helps them feel comfortable about expressing themselves.