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Joyful Noise

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Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
Written by Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by Eric Beddows
Harper Trophy, 1988. Newbery. 44 pgs.
What is the caterpillar thinking about while wrapped in its cocoon throughout the cold winter months? We can’t be 100 percent sure, but Paul Fleischman probably gets as close as anyone with a fascinating poetic peek into the day-to-day thoughts of our smallest 6-legged friends.

Joyful Noise is a celebration of life with each poem written in two-columns scripts for a child to read aloud with a friend, sibling, or parent. Accompanied by vivid pencil sketches, Fleischman writes short, brilliant lines that allow you to become a disgruntled worker bee or the luxurious queen. Step into the hilarious misadventures of an old married booklice couple, experience the sorrow of the lonely digger wasp that will never see her eggs hatch, or feel the exuberant bouncing of a grasshopper in spring. With just the right words, these poems create a musical experience for readers.
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