Countdown to Summer: A Poem for Every Day of the School Year

by: J. Patrick Lewis; Illustrated by Ethan Long

Published by: Little Brown and Company

Reviewed by Beth Cummings

Many schools are in session for 180 days. J. Patrick Lewis has created a book of 180 poems that follow the school calendar – starting in the fall and ending in the early summer. He has followed a variety of styles from limericks to haiku, from two-line couplets to long story ballads and several other varieties that paint pictures with words and sometimes show pictures with letters.

Most of the poems in this book are amusing. Some are silly. Some have real information to share and real emotion to impart. All of them are geared to upper-level elementary school sensibilities, although many are equally enjoyable for adults. An example is the couplet on Day 64:

“An actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth

Assassinated Hope and murdered Truth.”

An example of the sillier variety is a Quatrain on Weather from Day 81:
“What is the rain if not a sky

So frightened that it starts to cry?

What is the hail if not a cloud

That’s plying street drums very loud?”

These poems are reminiscent of those in the popular books by Shel Silverstein. This would be a fun book for the classroom or school library.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

Author’s Web site: http://www.JPatrickLewis.com