It’s hard to not get lost in collections of picture book poetry by Lee Bennett Hopkins (he is in the Guinness Book of World Records for most poetry anthologies after all), but I promise this is the last one this month.

When I was at Highlights last fall, Lee read a couple of poems from this collection.  Naturally, I had to track it down to read.  “Oh, No! Where are My Pants?” is a collection of poems by a variety of poets on many topics children might see as disasters.  It ranges from funny poems (like the one the book is named after) to tragic (like one dealing with the death of a class pet).  I heard Lee read both of those and loved them both instantly.

But I decided to not pick those to share today.  Instead, I picked one that reminded me of my own childhood.  I lived on a small island in the Southeast of Alaska.  The population consisted of fishing people, Coast Guard, and locals (with a large flux of tourists in summer).  I learned very early on how hard it was to say goodbye to friends, as a lot of people came and went from that little town.  Hardly anybody stayed for long.  Needless to say, this was a disaster in my little world growing up.