Photos and Poems

My personal favorite gift that Samantha received for her birthday was a book her dad found for her, called Because I Could Not Stop My Bike and Other Poems, by Karen Jo Shapiro.  It's a collection of classic poems which have been transformed into kid versions.  For example, from the editorial review listed at Amazon.com:

... Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" becomes "Oh, Mommy! My Mommy!," a lament from a kid stuck in the backseat on a long car trip. Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" becomes "Macaroni and Cheese" ("It was many and many a week ago/that I and my sister Louise/first tried out a food that you might know/called macaroni and cheese").

Before it arrived I thought the book might be a bit too silly or sophomoric, but it is so well done that it's fast becoming one of my favorites.  I'm going to have to re-read all of the original poems so that I can enjoy how the author plays off of them in her transformations.  (Samantha loves it too!)

The final half of Sam's birthday party was a hit.  Here are a few photos, and you can find the rest here at my Picasa site.  (I still hate the way I have them organized, but I can't seem to find a better way.)