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SHIVER ME TIMBERS




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Florian, Douglas. 2010. SHIVER ME TIMBERS. Ill. by Robert Neubecker. New York: Knopf. ISBN 9780375843754.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Ahoy, matey! SHIVER ME TIMBERS is a topsy-turvy poetry collection which even the scallywags will love! Aargh! 

This really is a bookful of fun. Florian delights with 19 rhyming poems all about the life of pirates. It’s playful, but sneaks in a fair amount of historical information. Florian includes poems about piracy terms, the code of conduct, pirate flags and even too much turtle food. 

Turtle Day

Turtle eggs for breakfast. 
Turtle stew for lunch. 
Turtle shell for dinner. 
Crunch! 
Crunch! 
Crunch!

While SHIVER ME TIMBERS might be light-hearted, it is no lightweight. The poems encourage participation through anticipatory rhyming for young children. At the end of each poem, there is a final line which serves as an “Aha” moment for the reader and leads to higher-level thinking, mostly through a comic conclusion, as in Pirate Punishment.

Pirate Punishment
(excerpt)

They tried to hang me seven times.
Ten times they broke me knees.
But worst of all
They had the gall
To make me eat me peas!



Complementing the textual story is the visual story. Robert Neubecker carries the engaging theme through to the artwork. His colors are vibrant and appealing. There is a fair amount of gross and nasty to delight all the young readers, especially boys, but not so much as to cause parents to cry foul.

SPOTLIGHT POEM AND LESSON

This lesson is designed for elementary grades. For preparation, have several poetry books written by Doug Florian available to students. Create a chart with the titles of each book as the header for a row.

Read the Pirates Pirate poem aloud to students. After reading it aloud, invite them to join you for a reread.

Pirates Pirate

Some pirates pirate rubies.
Some pirates pirate gold.
Some pirates pirate diamonds.
All that thar hands can hold.
Some pirates pirate spices.
They steal without a care.
Some pirates pirate pirates--
Arrgh, matey, best beware!

Group the students into pairs or triads and have them read other Florian books. Have a “return pile” for when they’re finished and need to trade.

Once kids have read three or more books, invite them to begin filling up each row with their favorite lines or their thoughts about the poem. Use different colored markers to separate thoughts and ideas. Once the chart is filled, examine the favorite lines and everyone’s thoughts for patterns.


















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