Please Bury Me In the Library

Written by J. Patrick Lewis and Illustrated by Kyle M. Stone

Published by Gulliver Books Harcourt Inc., 2005. 

This book of poems is all about the moments when you are so deep in your reading that time just seems to slip away. In this exagerated tale when you are not careful the time that may pass by while you are reading could be an eternity!
Lexile Level: Not Available
DRA Level: 24
Age Range: 8-11 years
Page Count: 32
Suggested Delivery: Read-Aloud

Key Words: Library, Reading, Books, Adventure, Poetry

Internet Resources:
J. Patrick Lewis's Webpage
http://www.jpatricklewis.com/
This is the authors own webpage, there are links for the students to play around with to get to know the author with answers to frequently answered questions. There is also for teachers a way to plan a visit with the author. This would be great to try and get the author to come and speak to the students about poetry.
New York Times Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/books/review/when-the-library-lights-go-out-please-bury-me-in-the-library-library-lovers.html?_r=0
This is a link to a New York Times article about Please Bury Me in the Library. This would be a great thing to share and read to the class before reading the book itself. It is a great read to get the students excited to read the book of poems.

Vocabulary:

• Language: method of human communication. 
• Sentences: a grammatical unit of one or more words that express an independent statement, question, request, command, etc. 
• Paradise: an ideal place or state.
• Haiku: Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of 5, 7, and 5.  
• Novel: a long written story usually about imaginary characters and events.
• Classic: judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind. 

Teaching Suggestions:

1. Since this is a book of poetry, this would be a great introduction to a poetry unit. You can use this book as an example to refer back to when learning about different types of poems. 
2. Give the students different poems from the book and have them draw their own pictures from what they see when they hear that poem. Paying attention to the descriptive words that are in the poems themselves.  

Reading Strategies:

1. Before: Have the students complete a vocabulary self-awareness chart from the vocabulary words listed above. Here is a link to a website which has a downloadable word document of a vocabulary awareness chart that can be filled in based on your own vocabulary words. See the words that most of the students do not know and teach those words.
2. During: Pick one of the poems that you find the most important as the teacher and do a close reading of that poem with the class. Make sure to print off a copy of the poem for each of the students so that as you are pointing things out they can be making note of it on their own copy.
3. After: Have the students question the author at the end of the reading. Ask them to answer the question, "why did the author write about reading?" Looking back through the text ask the students to point out why the author did certain things in his poems for emphasis. 

Writing Activity:
Students will be asked to write a poem. They are going to be asked to write a poem that is related to the reading. Ask them to focus on one of the scenes in the book and making it into their own perspective. If they finish this and have extra time they may write a poem that includes a description about there own reading experiences.