Looking For Rainforest

Today's post was inspired by adventurer Ed Stafford's 28-month walk along the Amazon River. Ed was the first person to ever walk the entire length of the river, and he posted about it on a very informative blog. He is affiliated to this rainforest-saving project. As you can see from the below NASA images of Brazil from 2000-2006, the deforestation is happening swiftly:

So here's a little rainforest picture book poetry...


Looking for Jaguar: And Other Rain Forest Poems by Susan Katz, with pictures by Lee Christiansen (2005)

A verse from the title poem:

Where purple flowers float like butterflies,
We listen for the jaguar's grunting call.
The air's so hot and wet it's hard to breathe.
The darkness seems alive -- it watches us.

~~

I actually did have a nightmare about a tarantula recently, so I can relate to this verse from "Nightmares Tonight":

A hairy bird-eating spider,
big as my fist,
with fangs poking from brown fur muffs,
stares at me with eight glittery eyes.
I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

~~

Links:
~If you can get your hands on a copy of the book, you might also want to check out Looking for Jaguar: A Teacher’s Guide
~Muddy Puddle Musings' post about Looking for Jaguar

~ Something different: The First Bards of the Amazon by Luis Hernán Ramírez, translated by R. Kelly Washbourne
~ One way that a famous guitar-maker is sustainably harvesting wood from the rainforest.

Time is running out to enter my Autumn Giveaway! Midnight on the 9th is the deadline. Any comment you make on any post on my blog counts as an entry.

Carol is this week's Poetry Friday round-up host.