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The Essential Basho: 06/26/10
I remember learning the basics of writing Haiku in fifth or sixth grade. I don't however remember any of the poems I wrote for school. Since then Haiku has been out of sight, out of mind for me. That was until my son and I read Dragon of the Red Dawn (Magic Tree House #37) by Mary Pope Osborne. The story centers on Jack and Annie meeting Matsuo Basho. Whenever Sean comes across an interesting factual detail in a book he's reading he likes to research what he's learned. Usually he and I will do a web search to find an article but sometimes he wants more. In the case of Basho, he wanted a book of his poetry. Luckily our library has a copy of The Essential Basho by Sam Hamill. It includes a brief biography of the poet and his most famous haikus. Sean was mostly interested in reading more of his work. So we took turns reading haikus to each other. I love it when one book will lead to another as Dragon of the Red Dawn lead us to The Essential Basho. Comments (6) Comment #1: Sunday, June, 27, 2010 at 17:37:39 Thanks for this review! I'm looking forward to reading it. Maybe my six-year-old and I should try the Magic Treehouse one as well I haven't read them with her before I've only glanced at them and the sibling interaction turns me off. Comment #2: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 10:11:37 Pussreboots You're welcome. My son was six when we started reading The Magic Tree House series. Comment #3: Sunday, July, 4, 2010 at 18:26:09 Buffy @ Situations Where You May Need It Do you find that the sibling relationship is pretty conflictual throughout the series or do you think I just picked up one that was especially that way? Comment #4: Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 19:24:28 Pussreboots Annie and Jack's relationship is inconsistent. It starts off terrible in the first four books and slowly improves. By the late 20s in the series their relationship regresses some. They also go from being very skilled to forgetting most of what they've learned. That seems to improve again by the 30s but I haven't read many books. We pretty much gave up at book 27. Comment #5: Friday, July, 9, 2010 at 20:07:38 Good, I'm glad to hear that maybe it wasn't just me being over-sensitive. We've got The Essential Basho out from the library and I'm looking forward to exploring it. Hopefully my six-year-old will get into it as well. :) Comment #6: Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 14:18:00 Pussreboots Enjoy the book. I read a bunch of the haikus outloud to my son. It was a nice way to share the poetry together. |