Shauna LaVoy Reynolds

Sylvia enjoys writing poetry and often becomes inspired by nature. At the end of winter, Sylvia takes her dog to the park and becomes inspired to write a poem. She then leaves it tied to a birch tree.The next morning she passes the tree and sees another poems taped there. Sylvia became thrilled that the tree responded to her writing with a poem of its own. Sylvia begins to exchange a few poems with the tree.
At school Sylvia learns how to write a Haiku, and writes a special one of her own earning a gold star. We see one of the boys at school jealous and act mean towards her. But this doesn't bother Sylvia as she is excited to share her Haiku with her tree. Later it is revealed that the tree wasn't talking back to Sylvia after all, but rather Walt from class was. He too thought the tree was talking to him. He compliments Sylvia on her poem and apologizes for his rude behavior the other day. The two become friends and continue to share poems with one another in the park.
I enjoyed the many examples of poems in the book. A student can read this book and learn how poems vary in different sizes and structures. The book also contains the steps of writing a Haiku. It would be a fun project to read this book and then have the class write Haikus of their own.… (mer)