A while back I was in the children’s section of our local public library with some of my siblings, and a certain book caught my eye. It was Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, written by Michael rose and illustrated by Quentin Blake (Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2004). Michael Rosen is a popular children’s writer, the author of [...]

A perfect Judge will read each Work of Wit
With the same Spirit that its Author writ.
~Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”
I sit in my classroom and clench my pen, a bit frustrated. I’m frustrated because I’m tired of questions - not because questions are bad, but because the goodness of questions comes from their purpose, [...]

Actually I don’t. But there are people who say they do, and that upsets me. Not because I don’t think that they are entitled to their own opinions and tastes - if any person truly hates poetry, I feel more sorry for than censorious of his deprivation.
Actually, nobody really hates poetry, deep down inside. A [...]