NCTE Poetry Award Recipient

The Excellence in Poetry for Children Award is a lifetime achievement award given by The National Council of Teachers of English beginning in 1977 as an annual award until 1982. In 1982, a decision was made to give the award every three years . Recipients must be living Americans whose poetry has been written for children between the ages of 3 - 13. To learn more about the NCTE visit their website: http://www.ncte.org.

Mary Ann Hoberman was the recipient of the NCTE Poetry Award in 2003. You Read to Me, I'll Read to You is a children's book that contains fourteen short stories written for sharing and reading together. Two people read the rhythm, rhyming and repititous text that has been color coded with one color aligned on the left and another color aligned on the right to easily determine the text to be read by each person. The words to be read together are in blue and centered.

The Snowman
by Mary Ann Hoberman

Hi Ho! Hi Ho!
The world is white!

Hi Ho! Hi Ho!
It snowed last night!

It snowed while we
Were fast asleep.

It's nice and high.
It's very deep.

Put on your clothes.
The ones for snow.

Pull on your boots
And then let's go!

What shall we do
The first of all?

Let's build a snowman.
Roll a ball.

I'll roll the bottom
On the ground.

I'll make the middle
Nice and round.

I'll find a pebble
For each eye.

And if he starts to melt,
He'll cry!

His mouth can be
An apple slice.

An apple slice
Will turn to ice.

I'm getting pretty
Icy, too.

You do look icy.

So do you.

Let's go inside
And get a drink.

Some cocoa would
Be good,
I think.

And while we're in,
What shall we do?

You read to me.
I'll read to you.

[from You Read to Me, I'll Read to You (Little, Brown and Company, 2001)]

Extension
This is wonderful for children to group together in twos and read to their class. They have fun, develop reading skills and become more comfortable standing in front of a group and speaking.