Thursday, January 17, 2008

Of Centos, Footnotes, and Reading Lists

Have you posted your 2008 "Want to Read" list? If not, you'd better get cracking, because folks in the Kidlitosphere have planned a seriously ambitious year o' books. (Look at these lists, compiled here at Chasing Ray.)

According to Goodreads.com, I have 54 books on my To-Read Shelf. And that's before I add any upcoming titles for 2008, like Tanita Davis's book, A la Carte. What'll I do? What'll I do?

Perhaps a cento would help organize my plan of attack. (Thanks, Tricia for the challenge!) Here are some interesting couplets that occurred naturally in my alphabetized list. Liberties taken, and then some:

An Alphabetized, Prognosticating Cento of Fortuitous Couplets1

You say aarrgh! I say ahhhh!
A Is for AARRGH!
(A Swift Pure Cry)

Crime and consequences
All Seated on the Ground
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

But I missed them
Billie Standish Was Here
Bread and Roses, Too

A Cheater's Diary
Could You? Would You? Do the Math:
Secrets, Lies, and Algebra

Can I see some I.D.?
I Am Not Joey Pigza
I Am a Pencil

I told you not to stick your nose in there
Juniper, Gentian, And Rosemary
Kissing the Bee

Fans Gone Wild
Punk Farm on Tour
Red Spikes

At the college bookstore
Sold (out):
Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I think I'm coming down with
Transforming Vision
Oh! You've got the Word Virus


  1. Pompous Title inspired by Mo Willems interview at MotherReader. Footnote techno-wizardry courtesy of FatherReader. S

8 comments:

  1. This is an excellent TBR list. I haven't done mine yet, in part because all I care about at the moment is not picking up a statistics handbook or academic paper on teacher education for many, many days. (Dare I say weeks or months?)

    I still have loads of 07 books on my list, so all those tantalizing 08 titles will have to wait.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great poem. Maybe I'll try one for tomorrow. With fancy title and footnotes.

    Thanks for the link to the Mo interview. I'm so happy with it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are definitely inspiring me. I am with Trisha though, still trying to read the 07 titles. I'll pick up the ones you love after you review them... (ah, the method in my madness).

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like the Cento. I have been a little nervous about looking at the reading lists because it will make my list grow. Most of my list is in my mind as of yet. I think if I wrote it all down then it would intimidate me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am buried with natinal boards but I did get An Arsonist's Guide...read. need to reread or listen to it. I think I will try to update my goodreads site this weekend. Loved the poe,

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great connections, as always, Sara! This was fun. Really fun. For some reason, I heard David Letterman in my head reading this poem aloud.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LOL, Laura...if David Letterman asks, I'll let him read it on his show. Then all the celebrities will be doing centos! :)

    ReplyDelete

R-E-S-P-E-C-T (or you will be deleted)

You can receive followup comments to this conversation by checking the "notify me" box below the comment window.