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A Writing Kind of Day: Poems for Young Poets by Ralph Fletcher is an unusual book. On the one hand, it is an entertaining, sometimes poignant and often amusing, collection of poems written in the voice of a boy in middle school who enjoys writing poetry. On the other hand, it is a book of poetry for kids (tweens and young teens) about the creative process of writing poetry. The book contains 27 poems, one per page.

The muted black and white illustrations by April Ward complement the poems without in any way distracting the reader from them.

The Poems

The poetry itself focuses on family, middle school, worries, and writing. Often a poem about writing a poem will be followed by the finished poem. The subjects range from the serious, like his grandmother's increasing loss of memory, to the very funny. Fletcher's use of metaphor is a real treat in such poems as "Bad Weather," in which the young poet reports, "They're predicting a big term paper / due to arrive Monday morning. / Tuesday the forecast looks bad: / intense DOL and grammar drills." His poem "Pinball" begins, "Stuck in a pinball game / (a.k.a. middle school) / rolling through halls, / blinked and bonked, /.."

Help for Young Poets

While the book can be enjoyed just as an entertaining book of poetry, it also provides a lot of information and inspiration that will be helpful to young poets. Fletcher's poems about writing show the boy's enthusiasm for writing, his love of words and metaphors, and his constant search for ideas and inspiration.

When his little sister's head reminds him of the planet earth, the boy writes, "I put that in my writer's notebook / to maybe write a poem later on; / it feels like money in the bank." He does indeed go on to write the poem. In another poem, "Poetry Recipe," the boy writes about trying to write a poem using the format, or recipe, suggested by his friend and finding that it doesn't work for him; he needs his own ingredients.

The Author, Poet Ralph Fletcher

Ralph Fletcher is not only an excellent poet, he has also written a number of very good books for kids about writing. Fletcher's Poetry Matters: Writing a Poem from the Inside Out is another good resource for 8- to 12-year-olds and young teens who are interested in writing poetry. Some of his other writing books for tweens and teens include: A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You, How Writers Work: Finding a Process That Works for You, and How to Write Your Life Story. His book Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices is aimed at classroom teachers and discusses ways of engaging boys in writing.

My Recommendation

I recommend A Writing Kind of Day for tweens and young teens who enjoy reading poetry and/or who write, or want to write, poetry. Because it speaks to a lot of the things (homework, aging relatives, girls, tests, etc.) that middle schoolers deal with, I think it would be an excellent book to use in a middle school language arts classroom to demonstrate how accessible poetry can be. Because the "voice" of the boy is so strong in all of the poems, I think it could also be used effectively to teach voice in writing. Finally, I think middle school boys who are reluctant readers might enjoy reading A Writing Kind of Day because while it is a book about a middle school boy, at 32-pages long, it is much shorter than a traditional novel. (Boyds Mills Press ,2005. ISBN: 9781590783535)