Cyrus Peirce Middle School 2007 Summer Reading Packet and ...

deathbed, this twinkling-eyed man manages to teach us all about living robustly and fully.Kudos to author and acclaimed sports columnist Mitch Albom for telling this universallytouching story with such grace and humility.PoetryHeartbeat by: Sharon CreechTwelve-year-old Annie ponders the many rhythms of life the year that her motherbecomes pregnant, her grandfather begins faltering, and her best friend (and runningpartner) becomes distant.I am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices by: Paul FleischmanDuring a short career, Fleischman has received rave reviews and awards for his distinctivestories, radically different from each other. Here the author gives way to the poet, his alterego, composing works that are arranged as duets but can also be relished by one alone,reading or reciting the lines as paeans to birds of various feathers.Love That Dog by: Sharon CreechJack hates poetry. Only girls write it and every time he tries to, his brain feels empty. Buthis teacher, Ms. Stretchberry, won't stop giving her class poetry assignments—and Jackcan't avoid them. But then something amazing happens. The more he writes, the more helearns he does have something to say.Out of the Dust by: Karen HesseIn a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on herfamily's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by: Paul FleischmanWinner of the 1989 Newbery Award, Joyful Noise is a children's book of poetry aboutinsects that was designed for two readers to enjoy together. On each page are twocolumns of verse for children to alternate reading aloud about the lives of six-leggedcreatures ranging from fireflies writing in the sky to a love affair between two lice, cricketseating pie crumbs and the single day in the life of a mayfly.Witness by: Karen HesseA series of poems express the views of various people in a small Vermont town, includinga young black girl and a young Jewish girl, during the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klanis trying to infiltrate the town.