Welcome to Family Reading Night

Welcome family and friends to our Annual Family Reading Night.

Please feel free to look around, talk to teachers, and eat pizza. In addition, please have your student and any children under 18 pick a book to take home off the table in the back.

We also have some reading and writing info on the front table next to the sign in sheet.

Thank you for being here! You are the best!

Downtown Learning Center Staff

What is the Message of This Poem?

Read over this poem and use the poetry plan to figure out what the author's message is. What is the author trying to say? Think especially about the last couple of lines.

Halloween

Mac Hammond

The butcher knife goes in, first, at the top
And carves out the round stemmed lid,
The hole of which allows the hand to go
In to pull the gooey mess inside, out -
The walls scooped clean with a spoon.
A grim design decided on, that afternoon,
The eyes are the first to go,
Isosceles or trapezoid, the square nose,
The down-turned mouth with three
Hideous teeth and, sometimes,
Round ears. At dusk it's
Lighted, the room behind it dark.
Outside, looking in, it looks like a
Pumpkin, it looks like ripeness
Is all. Kids come, beckoned by
Fingers of shadows on leaf-strewn lawns
To trick or treat. Standing at the open
Door, the sculptor, a warlock, drops
Penny candies into their bags, knowing
The message of winter: only the children,
Pretending to be ghosts, are real.

The poem is from this site: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/108.html

Here is a link to the poetry plan