Messing Around on the Monkey Bars by Betsy Franco

Messing Around on the Monkey Bars is a fun collection of poems that are meant to be read aloud by pairs. I just loved the over all idea of this poetry book. It is a for sure way to get your students involved and working together. The poems use bolded and unbolded font to differentiate between characters.I really liked the subjects of the poems in this book as well. The themes of the poems were different aspects of school, such as the library, recess, homework, and lunch time, all things that children can relate to.I can recall reading some of the poems and remembering having similar feelings when I was back in elementary school. Though the poems were often repetitive they would no less be fun for the students to read aloud. Some of the words uses in the poems are a little bit more difficult then others so I would probably recommend this book for 1st-2nd students. This books I think is a fun way to open with poetry and to inspire students to use their own experiences, such as school, to create poetry.