Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from WritersCorps


WritersCorps - 2003
    Tomorrow my name will be lively spirits. My friends think my name is fire. The police think my name is burden. My parents think my name is symphony. Secretly I know my name is anything I want it to be.Paint Me Like I Am is a collection of poems by teens who have taken part in writing programs run by a national nonprofit organization called WritersCorps. To read the words of these young people is to hear the diverse voices of teenagers everywhere.Included are a foreward by acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni, an essay from Kevin Powell, another poet associated with WritersCorps, and writing tips from WritersCorps instructors.WritersCorps was started in 1994 to help at-risk youth in three American urban centers: San Francisco, Washington, DC, and New York City (the Bronx). Thousands of children and teenagers have since benefited from finding creative expression through writing.

Shout


Laurie Halse Anderson - 2019
    Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she's never written about before. Searing and soul-searching, this important memoir is a denouncement of our society's failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #metoo and #timesup, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts. SHOUT speaks truth to power in a loud, clear voice—and once you hear it, it is impossible to ignore.

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty


Christine Heppermann - 2014
    But you are more than just a hero ora villain, cursed or charmed. You are everything in between. You are everything. In fifty poems Christine Heppermann places fairy tales side by side with the modern teenage girl. Powerful and provocative, deadly funny and deadly serious, this collection is one to read, to share, to treasure, and to come back to again and again.

One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance


Nikki GrimesChristopher Myers - 2017
    Using "The Golden Shovel" poetic method, Grimes has written a collection of poetry that is as gorgeous as it is thought-provoking.This special book also includes original artwork in full-color from some of today's most exciting African American illustrators, who have created pieces of art based on Nikki's original poems. Featuring art by: Cozbi Cabrera, R. Gregory Christie, Pat Cummings, Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Ebony Glenn, Nikki Grimes, E. B. Lewis, Frank Morrison, Christopher Myers, Brian Pinkney, Sean Qualls, James Ransome, Javaka Steptoe, Shadra Strickland, and Elizabeth Zunon.A foreword, an introduction to the history of the Harlem Renaissance, author's note, poet biographies, and index makes this not only a book to cherish, but a wonderful resource and reference as well. Awards for Planet Middle School: 2014 Garden State Teen Book Awards listNominated for the 2012 NCAAP Image Award - Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/TeensCCBC Choices 20122012 Best Children's Books of the Year, Bank StreetNominated for the 2012-13Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards Program

The Princess Saves Herself in This One


Amanda Lovelace - 2016
    the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. Explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations.

The Watch That Ends the Night


Allan Wolf - 2011
    A beautiful Lebanese refugee, on her way to family in Florida, discovers the first stirrings of love. And an ancient iceberg glides south, anticipating its fateful encounter. The voices in this remarkable re-creation of the Titanic disaster span classes and stations, from Margaret ("the unsinkable Molly") Brown to the captain who went down with his ship; from the lookout and wireless men to a young boy in search of dragons and a gambler in search of marks. Slipping in telegraphs, undertaker’s reports, and other records, poet Allan Wolf offers a breathtaking, intimate glimpse at the lives behind the tragedy, told with clear-eyed compassion and astounding emotional power.Extensive back matter includes:Author’s noteMorse code with messages to decipherTitanic miscellanyBibliography, articles, periodicals, government documents, discography

Somebody Give This Heart a Pen


Sophia Thakur - 2019
    The collection is arranged as life is: from youth to school, to home life, falling in love and falling straight back out again. The poems draw on the author’s experience as a young mixed-race young woman trying to make sense of a lonely and complicated world. With a strong narrative voice and emotional empathy, this is poetry that will resonate with all young people, whatever their background, and whatever their dreams. As she says, she hopes the poems will help readers "grow through what they go through".

For Every One


Jason Reynolds - 2018
    Memorial, and later as a tribute to Walter Dean Myers, this stirring and inspirational poem is New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds’s rallying cry to the young dreamers of the world.For Every One is just that: for every one. For every one person. For every one dream. But especially for every one kid. The kids who dream of being better than they are. Kids who dream of doing more than they almost dare to dream. Kids who are like Jason Reynolds, a self-professed dreamer. Jason does not claim to know how to make dreams come true; he has, in fact, been fighting on the front line of his own battle to make his own dreams a reality. He expected to make it when he was sixteen. Then eighteen. Then twenty-five. Now, some of those expectations have been realized. But others, the most important ones, lay ahead, and a lot of them involve kids, how to inspire them. All the kids who are scared to dream, or don’t know how to dream, or don’t dare to dream because they’ve NEVER seen a dream come true. Jason wants kids to know that dreams take time. They involve countless struggles. But no matter how many times a dreamer gets beat down, the drive and the passion and the hope never fully extinguish—because just having the dream is the start you need, or you won’t get anywhere anyway, and that is when you have to take a leap of faith. A pitch-perfect graduation, baby, or inspirational gift for anyone who needs to me reminded of their own abilities—to dream.

God Got a Dog


Cynthia Rylant - 2013
    The soft, reflective, and often humorous words and pictures create a glimpse into everyday life through wide and wondering eyes that blends the familiar with the profoundly spiritual.

Blue Lipstick: Concrete Poems


John Grandits - 2007
    Her musings about trying out new makeup and hairstyles, playing volleyball and cello, and dealing with her annoying younger brother are never boring or predictable. Who else do you know who designs her own clothes and writes poetry to her cat? Jessie’s a girl with strong opinions, and she isn’t shy about sharing them. Her funny, sarcastic take on high school life is revealed through concrete poetry: words, ideas, type, and design that combine to make pictures and patterns. The poems are inventive, irreverent, irresistible, and full of surprises—just like Jessie—and the playful layout and ingenious graphics extend the wry humor.

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems


Langston Hughes - 1932
    in black-and-white. This classic collection of poetry is available in a handsome new gift edition that includes seven additional poems written after The Dream Keeper was first published. In a larger format, featuring Brian Pinkney's scratchboard art on every spread, Hughes's inspirational message to young people is as relevant today as it was in 1932.

Voices


David Elliott - 2019
    Along the way it explores issues such as gender, misogyny, and the peril of speaking truth to power. Before Joan of Arc became a saint, she was a girl inspired. It is that girl we come to know in Voices.

Blood Water Paint


Joy McCullough - 2018
    She was one of Rome's most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost.He will not consumemy every thought.I am a painter.I will paint.I will show youwhat a woman can do.

Love & Misadventure


Lang Leav - 2013
    Awarded a coveted Churchill Fellowship, her work expresses the intricacies of love and loss. Beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully conceived, Love and Misadventure will take you on a rollercoaster ride through an ill-fated love affair- from the initial butterflies to the soaring heights- through to the devastating plunge. Lang Leav has an unnerving ability to see inside the hearts and minds of her readers. Her talent for translating complex emotions with astonishing simplicity has won her a cult following of devoted fans from all over the world.

Empty Bottles Full of Stories


R.H. Sin - 2019
    Sin and Robert M. Drake. What are you hiding behind your smile? If those empty bottles that line the walls of your room could speak, what tales would they spill? So much of your truth is buried beneath the lies you tell yourself. There’s a need to scream to the moon; there’s this urge to go out into the darkness of the night to purge. There are so many stories living inside your soul, you just want the opportunity to tell them. And when you can’t find the will to express what lives within your heart, these words will give you peace. These words will set you free.