Celebrate Poetry Month With Roberto Germán ~ Christy Mihaly

This April is the 30th anniversary of National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate the important role poetry plays in our lives and well-being. Today GROG is pleased to welcome poet Roberto Germán to share some poetry insights.

Many people assume poets must be "special" people, but Roberto believes that anyone can be a poet. He points out that writing poetry connects us with our innermost emotions and thoughts, and helps us make order of the chaos. That's something we can all use!

Educators

Roberto and his wife Lorena Germán founded and run Multicultural Classroom, which offers schools and other organizations training in social justice and inclusivity. They travel nationwide to bring their programs, workshops, and wisdom to educators and students, seeking to bring a diversity of perspectives to education.

Roberto and Lorena Germán

Poetry Workshops

Roberto also runs poetry workshops in schools. These are designed to help students find their voices through poems. Poetry, Roberto points out, is a powerful tool to help young people tell their stories. Writing poetry helps kids process their experiences and emotions as they develop their identities. He tells students of his own turbulent early years as a Black Dominican-American, the son of immigrants.

In 2023, Roberto published Blue Ink Tears, a bilingual collection of poems interspersed with handwritten notes and photographs.  Roberto wrote the poems over many years, starting when he was still a teen. He tells students that if he could do this, they can, too. His poems explore themes of immigration, race, family, masculinity, love, and loss.

In reading his work to students, Roberto models how poetry helps tap into our emotional truth. He teaches young people to honor vulnerability rather than burying their feelings. He told me he didn't have a mentor to share these lessons when he was growing up, but eventually he realized that writing could be a tool to process his thoughts and feelings. He hopes his poetry workshops help students do the same.

Poems from Blue Ink Tears

I've chosen some shorter selections from Roberto's collection to share today. Enjoy! 

Roberto addresses themes of love ... 

... and immigration, heritage, and metaphorical belonging (also, there's a food thread) ...

... with some haiku exploring themes of history and heritage: 

                                   

For more of Roberto's poetry, you can hear him recite his work here. To see a student reading his own poem after one of Roberto's workshops, check this out. 

Profound thanks to Roberto for sharing.

And Happy Poetry Month to all. 

Fezziwig is a good name for a rabbit. But if she were a tyrant, Woundwort would be better.

 

        

Shakespeare knew it.

 

Dickens did too.

 

They knew how important character names are. 

 

Names do a lot of heavy lifting in our stories. They affect how readers react to our characters as soon as they meet them on the page. That affect can be positive or negative. Shakespeare is a master of this, of course, with the foolish Dogberry and the poisonous Malvolio. Dickens is, too, and seemed to have a wonderful time choosing names, from Fezziwig to Ebenezer Scrooge. Beverly Cleary gave us Ramona and Beezus, and Kate DiCamillo gave us Mercy Watson and Despereaux Tilling, to say nothing of Winn-Dixie . . .

 

Letter Sounds

I thought of this the other day, as I read aloud a picture book manuscript I’m working on. In line after line, I found myself stumbling. Every time I came to the main character’s name, it stuck in my throat.

 

Clearly, action was needed! I needed to find a name that was still descriptive of the character, but easier to read aloud. My original name contained a lot of hard C sounds (like you hear in kick and crush). If another word with a c sound followed the name, my tongue tangled.

English is wonderful in its variety, and part of that are the sounds that the letters make. Some are hard, like C (which sounds like /k/), but C can also be soft like an /s/ (celebrate, city, and circle are all examples of this letter sound. Hard C rattles and cuts. Soft c doesn’t.

 

I liked the edge that hard C gave my character’s name and, by extension, him.

This is nothing new; certain letters hit the ear in a similar way – think of Cruella de Vil (that V! the name contains cruel and devil!), Nurse Ratched (listen to the ratcheting sound, and the name contains rat to boot). Watership Down gave us General Woundwort, and His Dark Materials, Mrs. Coulter. Does that mean you can’t have a villain named Fluffi McBodkins? Of course you can, and I’d love to see you run with it!

 

 Fezziwig, the bunny in question

 

Back to my recent experience. The C name just wasn’t working. And so, the fun began: finding a new name. I wanted the name to be realistic (sorry, Fluffi), and American with European roots. It was just a last name I was after. Way back when, I was counseled to hunt through the white pages for likely names; fortunately, we now have the internet, which gives us millions of options. 

 

History Counts 

Names should be of their time, too, especially if you’re working on an historical story. The Social Security Administration keeps track of the top names per year. In 1984, Jennifer, Jessica and Ashley ruled the hospital nursery, along with Christopher, Michael, and Matthew. In 2024, Charlotte, Amelia, and Olivia had taken over; for boys, Liam, Oliver, and Henry were among the top choices.

Here’s the link for the SSA: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/state/top5_2024.html

You can also check the Census website to find names that are common: (https://www.census.gov/topics/population/genealogy/data/2010_surnames.html) 

 

Wait, what if you want something completely different? The least common names? Here's a good place to look: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/rarest-baby-names-state-brilliant-194500337.html. This list of unusual names is broken out by state.  And this list (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/53301/least-popular-american-baby-names-according-early-records) gives you a breakdown by year. Who knew that Icy was an unpopular girl's name in 1885? And what was going on in 1913, with the least popular names were Louise for boys and Louis for girls? 

 

One of my favorite sites is Behind the Name (https://www.behindthename.com/), which gives you an overview of the name’s history and origin as well as meaning. Here’s a sample of what the page offers:

 

I love the "People think this name is" section because of the extra insight it provides. And food for thought, too: Frances is considered formal and classic (who knew?). There are also graphs that show the popularity of the name in different countries. And on the landing page, there are links to names from various cultures. 

 

All right, I wasn't going to say anything. But I feel obligated. In one particularly popular book series, there is a character who is not from the author's cultural background. The character has a name that some consider to be offensive. If you are writing characters from other cultures, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. 

 

Nuff said. 

 

Last Names

As I mentioned, this whole adventure started because I wanted a last name for the bad guy in my picture book. One list at Parade.com, contains more than 300 suggestions, broken down by categories. The section on villains includes names ripped from the headlines (Manson, Gacy, Dahmer), clearly suggestive names (Crook, Bane, Nadir, and Gallows). I didn't go for those suggestions, but who knows when I might need such a name in the future?

 

 I checked the US Census web site, which provides lists of common surnames in the United States (https://www.census.gov/about/history/census-records-family-history/frequently-occurring-surnames.html). Here are the most common surnames as of 2010:

 

 

If you hear a good name, make a note of it. One day, you’ll find a character walks onto your page and asks, “Who am I?” And you’ll be ready to answer.

 

Beyond the Book: Why I Built a 20-Day Pacing Guide (And Why You Should Too) by Todd Burleson

As creators of children's literature, we spend years obsessing over our characters, researching our settings, and polishing our prose. But getting a book into a classroom requires more than just a compelling story. It requires saving a teacher's time.

In my 34 years as a teacher/librarian, I have learned that the most precious, scarce, and fiercely guarded resource in any school building isn't funding or technology. It is time. Teachers pour their hearts out for their students every single day, often at the expense of their own evenings and weekends. When an educator finds a beautiful, complex novel they want to share with their students, the joy of discovery is frequently followed by a quiet, exhausting realization: Now I have to build the unit. They have to spend hours aligning standards, writing discussion questions, and building cross-curricular connections from scratch.

When I set out to launch my middle-grade historical fiction novel, The Secret War, I didn't just want to release a book. I wanted to build an entire experience. To help educators teach it, I wanted to give them the exact tool I always wished someone would hand me: a fully integrated, zero-prep roadmap.

That is why I created a comprehensive Teacher Companion built around a 20-Day Pacing Guide.

My pedagogical philosophy leans away from rote memorization and toward deep, empathetic inquiry. I explicitly designed the guide for "Discussion Over Assessment". Students don't need more multiple-choice tests checking for plot retention; they need pathways to sit with the complexity of history. The pacing guide treats each section of the novel as a distinct unit of meaning, structured to easily fit a four-week novel study.

The entire guide is modular. Educators can mix and match daily "Bell Ringer" prompts, character lens dossiers, and interdisciplinary STEM activities to fit the specific needs of their kids.

For authors, creating these resources isn't just about marketing. Teaching is an act of profound hope. By providing these tools, my goal is to give educators back their Sunday afternoons, allowing them to focus entirely on guiding their students through the shadows of history.

To my fellow children's literature writers: How are you supporting the gatekeepers of your stories? When you release a book into the world, consider what tools you can provide to make an educator's life a little easier.

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The Secret War officially launches on April 1st. If you visit my author website, toddburlesonwonders.com, you'll see I’ve intentionally built the landing page for the book to be an immersive "experience" for prospective readers (I'll share a post diving into exactly how I built that digital experience later!). There, you can also download the free Educator's Guide, which includes the 20-Day Pacing Guide and the Student Field Notes workbook, and explore more of the history behind the story.