A Fish! Don't You Wish

About the Book

In the spring of the year 2001, Ben and Carrie Pinkard, aged six and eight, asked their grandmother to help them write poems. Her reply was a resounding, "Yes." What happened when this trio met on Wednesday afternoons for five consecutive months to explore and make poems makes up the content of this book.

At each meeting poems were read a loud (as all poems should be); the children were guided into activities intended to sharpen their powers of observation and stir their imagination; poems were then created by the children.

This book contains 74 poems, approximately half written by each child. It is unique in presenting many poems written by a single child poet. The reader will find short poems, long ones, philosophical poems, descriptive poems, humorous poems, and ones that reveal how deep the heart and how keen the mind of children can be. These poems make a potent argument for making an honored place for reading and writing poems in elementary schools.

About the Author

Carolyn Pinkard earned a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1955 from the University of Florida. Since then she has worked as a newspaper reporter, director of a program for teaching pastoral counseling to clergy, director of psychological services in a community mental health center, and college professor.

She is the author of Word Play, a book of poems, and Lies That Tell The Truth, a book about metaphor. The mother of two sons, for the past ten years she has been a grandmother to Ben and Carrie Pinkard. From the day of Ben's birth she has sought to foster in her grandchildren, first, a liking for words and their magic, and, then, a love for stories, books and poems through using a hands-on approach of listening to them, discussing them, and creating them. A part of their response the reader now holds in his hands?a book of poems made by Ben and Carrie.