Hopkins Collection

Hopkins Collection

 

Bibliography:

Hopkins, Lee Bennett. 2009. City I Love. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers.  ISBN 978-0810983274.

Summary/Analysis:

City I Love is a collection of 18 poems that each focus on a different aspect of life in a unique city.  Each poem represents a different major city like New York, Tokyo, Cairo, etc.  There is a world map on the inside cover that help the reader identify where the city is located in the world.  The poems are accompanied by illustrations by Marcellus Hall that provide a basic idea of the location of the specific poem.  While the poems are each about a different city, the same dog is found in each illustration and helps connect the poems and places together.

Alliteration and imagery are used in almost all the poems.  A variety of poetic forms are used, but each poem contains strong imagery and playful words that are easy for the reader to connect to.  Even though students may not have been to a city like Cairo, Hopkins includes something familiar like a child flying a kite.  He also exposes them to new and possibly unfamiliar aspects of these cities.  Hopkins uses the structure of the poems to help emphasis the imagery he is wanting to create.  In “Snow City” the word “down” appears to be floating down just like the snow being talked about and seen in the illustrations.  Each poem also is seen from a different perspective and the illustrations help tell each city’s story and keep the reader engaged. The poems are all very consistent in quality and short in length which makes this collection great for most elementary students.  The collection is without a table of contents or index.

Use:

City Lights

Blazing lights

flicker

flash

glitter

twinkle

sparkle

bedazzle

beam

so

brilliantly

bright

Reasons

why

city

stays

awake

all

night.

In this poem Hopkins writes about Tokyo, Japan.  The illustrations that accompany the poem are show off the city’s bright lights, billboards, and liveliness.  This is a good example of how in all the poems Hopkins takes a poem that focuses on something that most cities have, but allows the illustrations to bring it all together and let the alliteration and imagery of the text come to life.  After reading poem with students ask them why he chose to use specific words to describe Tokyo.  Then have students focus on their hometown and come up with one unique aspect of what makes it special and unique (Example: Austin, Tx and music).  Have students work in groups to come up with a list of descriptive words that describe that place and invoke a sense of imagery.  As a group or a class use the words to create a poem about the city that they live in.  If time allows have students create their own artwork that helps give voice to the poem.