This book gives great advice to anyone who is looking to write poetry. Have to write a poem in school and need some advice? This is a great book to turn to!

Picture yourself writing poetry: Using photos to inspire writing by Laura Salas

This book combines explanations of poetry with ideas for writing your own poem. The first spread introduces the beauty of poetry and how photographs can help inspire creativity and offers a five step writing process; prewrite, draft, revise, edit, publish. The following “chapters” (each chapter is about 3 pages long) encourage readers to get ideas from photos. Chapter one, explains some mechanics of writing, like adding sensory details and metaphors. Chapter two covers word choices – nouns, verbs, and more. The third chapter addresses characters and the final chapter discusses word arrangement. The book also includes a glossary, further resources, internet resources, and index.

Verdict: If you have a lot of kids interested in writing, specifically poetry, this would be a good additional purchase. It’s full of photographs and practical writing advice. If you mostly have kids who would rather die than set pen to page, save this title for the school library, as it will make a good resource for teachers.

ISBN: 978-1429672092; Published August 2011 by Capstone; Review copy provided by the publisher for Cybils