Rainbows Are Made: Poems

by Carl Sandburg

Book Overview

" Carefully selected, this assemblage of Sandburg poems includes many that are not often included in collections of his work for young readers. The quality of the writing is matched by the strong,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0152654801
• ISBN13: 9780152654801
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P
• Length: 81 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.8" x 10.3"
• Age Range: 7 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 2 and higher

Customer Reviews

Ingredients Include Sun, Clouds, Rain and A Wilingness To Look

The thing about cleaning my classroom, as the school year ended yesterday (I am a 1st grade teacher with 25 plus years of experience K-6), is that I return again to wishing for the time to write a fitting statement on all the books from my book boxes. I have thousands to be sorted and held, looked at fondly and to "remember" to help bring me closure on "this group." Books seem to be so important I get them in shape first. They once were the heart of my work. Now there is ticking, standard, bomb and bust, and "the education politics." We hear those that say we are "failing" even as our system is the one the world would come to join. But this book was one I used in 4th grade a good deal years past, as a transition teacher in a migrant town teaching very wise thoughtful children, very serious ones, because it carries poems I'd put up on the board each AM or distribute copied in something I called "The Poem Opener." From that each child developed a poetry portfolio of collected work over the course of a year. Sandburg bloomed out of this volume, as other days held Hughes, other poets, that I selected to use with them. Beyond that collection, of course, were the room requirements for one weekly recitation. It was just part of the day. Our day. I did the same in 1st teaching quite proudly until NCLB described the contents of all the minutes in its demanded "new curricular fix" in an under-performing school take-over....which really was narrowing, omitting literature and poetry, art, science, math concept and pretty much anything I once knew as content. That's what they did. It's not what they say they did. It's what they did. It appears to say it is seen as a political act. And few are willing to lay it on the line and tell you. However as is happening nowadays it was what was done while denying that was the "intention." But in 1st we once memorized and recited as a group poems like "My Shadow," or some other piece, that wasn't usually too nonsensical, was NOT written by a textbook company to be sold and actually pointed you into thought, language and the power of the "word." Believe me, that's gone in my world now. We selected work that fit the themes. Ones I invented by knowing just a little. Now we say things that are some of the worst examples of poetry I ever saw, stamped out in a cookie cutter and "sold" as good to do with children. Well they told us so...so it must be so. You'll not see Sandburg then. Not even little cat feet. All that said, let me describe the book. It's printed on a thick slightly cream paper set with woodcuts or wood engravings. I grew up in linocut classes with Darryl Gray -an artist in my hometown of Morgantown, WV- so I developed early a vast appreciation for this kind of printing. These prints by Fritz Eichenberg are not on every page but they do occur in the book in a meditative fashion as sections change, and really enhance the work. So striking me first, as I have that visual nature coming from a background in

A great way to introduce poetry to youth.

I bought "Rainbows Are Made" for a teenager as a Congratulations gift, and he has since looked up more of Carl Sandburg's work. I'm waiting to see if his curious enjoyment of it takes him any further. For now, I can't think of anything else that would recommend the permanence of this collection anymore than this.

Stays with you

In 5th grade, we had to choose a poem to recite from a book ofthe teachers choice. I was given this book, and fell in love with it.'Grass' is haunting, and subtle word play makes every read seem like the first time.