Nine A Book of Nonet Poems

Fans of clever poetry and numbers rejoice! Nine is a book of nine-line poems called nonets, all about the number nine!

Hey!
Hi there!
Love nonets?
I'm sure you do.
What are they, you ask?
You don't know a nonet?
Not even one little one?
Actually, they're all the same size!
They're poems, of course--and here's your first!

Each poem in this clever collection is a nonet: a nine-line poem that starts with nine syllables in the first line and ends with one syllable in the ninth line (or the reverse). But these nonets go even further! Every one is also written with the number nine at its heart. There's plenty to love and learn: topics include the nine months it takes a baby to be born, cats' nine lives, baseball's nine players, and the nine-banded armadillo. Some feature history, such as the Little Rock Nine, the spacecraft Apollo 9, the ninth president; others explain idioms, like "dressed to the nines," "cloud nine," and "the whole nine yards." Explore these and more with nonets galore!

Irene Latham is the author of more than a dozen books, including two novels for children: Leaving Gee's Bend and Don't Feed the Boy. Winner of the 2016 ILA Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award, her poetry books for children include Dear Wandering Wildebeest, When the Sun Shines on Antarctica, Fresh Delicious, and Can I Touch Your Hair? (co-written with Charles Waters). Irene lives near Birmingham, Alabama.

Amy Huntington has been illustratating children's books for twenty years. She illustrated Fresh-Picked Poetry, as well as Grandma Drove the Garbage Truck, Grandma Drove the Snowplow, and Grandma Drove the Lobsterboat among others. www.amyhuntington.com