Book Review: Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up by Lisa Westberg Peters

Bibliographic Citation:

Peters, Lisa Westberg. 2003. Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books. ISBN: 0060292660

Book Review:

What a great book to use when introducing new Science topics! Earthshake by Lisa Westberg Peters contains 22 poems about the Earth. Peters uses a table of contents at the beginning to assist readers in finding specific poems. At the end of the book, there is a note section that provides information about the Earth's surface and basic geology. I really liked how there were notes at the back of the book, because this allows students to learn more about that scientific topic to further research.

The non-rhyming poems in the book range from 4-5 sentences to 4-5 stanzas. They are all very quick reads and the illustrations accurately describe what the poem is about. My favorite poem is called "Continental Promises" and it's consists of two love letters from "South America" and "Africa" and how they will never break up (ie: continental drift). Peters does a great job making Science fun, but also adds in information so that you can learn a thing or two. I would highly recommend this book to teachers of elementary students, this is a great book to use when introducing new Science concepts and to use as a poetry break.

Spotlight Poem:

Polar Confusion

What if
the North Pole
because the South Pole,
and the South Pole
because the North Pole?

Would Antartica
lose it's Ant?
Would the Arctic
gain it?

Would Santa need
a new address?
Would the penguins
trade places with
the reindeer?

Would southpaws
become northpaws?
Would the maps
be upside down?

if South were North
and North were South?

Activity:

I chose this poem because I thought it would be a great poem to share before third grader learns about the Arctic. In Third Grade, they learn about the environments and animals that live in the North and South poles. This silly poem would be a great way to get student interested in Polar Regions and get them thinking about the "what ifs". After reading this poem, you could even ask students if they could think of any other problems that would happen if these two poles switched.