Resources & Links to Multicultural Poetry

Web Site for teachers interested in reading about diversity and literature:
Writing and Illustrating Multicultural Children's Books

Together in DiVERSity Selected Poetry Picture Books:

A Pizza the Size of the Sun by Jack Prelutsky offers more fun and games by a poet who makes kids laugh out loud.

Becoming Joe DiMaggio by Maria Testa tells the verse story of Joseph Paul and his celebration of baseball and Italian American family life.

Come With Me: Poems for a Journey by Naomi Shehab Nye lures youngsters on a quest with beautiful words and lovely images.

Cool Melons - Turn to Frogs! The Life and Poems of Issa by Matthew Golub recounts the life of Issa an eighteenth century Japanese poet with examples of his haiku poems.

Good Luck Gold and Other Poems by Janet S. Wong is an anthology of poems by an Asian American girl.

In the Hollow of Your Hand Slave Lullabies by Alice McGill includes illustrations, stories, and notations of amazing songs along with a CD of these selections sung by the author.

Jump Back, Honey by Paul Lawrence Dunbar pays homage to the nineteenth century African American poet with fourteen of his poems described and illustrated by six leading children's book artists.

Lots of Limericks edited by Myra Cohn Livingston shows children the humor of peculiar people and funny places.

Love to Langston by Tony Medina is a biographical tribute to Langston Hughes through a series of free verse poems.

My Man Blue by Nikki Grimes tells the poetic story of a boy named Damon and his surrogate father Blue.

My Name is Jorge On Both Sides of the River by Jane Medina features bilingual poems about a Mexican immigrant boy confronting school in a new, often unfriendly land.

Not a Copper Penny in Me House: Poems from the Caribbean by Monica Gunning celebrates a Caribbean Island with vibrant pictures and poems.

Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets selected by Naomi Shihab Nye reveals the genuine voices of Grade 1-12 students.

Songs Are Thoughts: Poems of the Inuit edited by Neil Philip records the poems and land of a people who live in Canada and Greenland.

The Desert is My Mother El Desierto Es Mi Madre by Pat Mora depicts a child's bilingual reflections on her life in a desert.

The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land by Joseph Burchac presents twelve nature poems from different Native American peoples.

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