Joyful Noise

Joyful Noise

Written by: Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by: Eric Beddows
Genre: Poetry
Grades: 3-6
Awards: Newbery Award

This book is great and meant to be read by two people at the same time. Each reader will take either the left-side or the right-side of the page and read as if it was a musical duet. There is a total of fourteen poems in this book talking about insects and the insect's point of view and how they interact with the world. These insects include grasshoppers, fireflies, cicadas, honeybees, crickets, and more. One poem I enjoyed reading from the book was "The Moth's Serenade." From a moth's perspective, they are completely in love with the porch light. The poem describes how the porch light is the moth's "soul desire" and "shining star" and how the moth would love to marry it.

The last poem in this book is "Chrysalis Diary." This caterpillar has its own diary of transformation from caterpillar to it becoming a butterfly. It starts off on November 13, where it starts to hang off a tree branch during winter time. On December 6, it feels all alone as color of the leaves have faded. On January 4, it notices that everything in the world became white from all the snow. On February 12, an ice storm frightened the little creature as branches fell and the noises were alarming. On March 28, the little creature felt itself evolve, grew wings, and have a different body shape. The butterfly finally had freedom to fly.  

I would love to have this book in my classroom as it teaches students about the insect world. Insects can be a bit scary, but having poems about them can be fun and enjoyable when learning about them. This book would be perfect for third to sixth grades. This book can be useful in a science classroom for a teacher to introduce insects to their students. In a reading and writing class, the teacher can give a student each a poem and have them draw what is going on during their poem and explain it to their classmates.