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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Teachers
    • Our Faculty Assistants
    • Contact us
    • Careers
    • Parent Information
  • Program Info
    • Speech Arts
    • Book Clubs
    • Writers' Room
    • Festival Group Class
    • Student Leadership Opportunities
  • Registration
    • Term Information
    • Summer 2025 Registration
    • Fall 2025 Registration
    • RCM & Trinity Exams
  • Beyond the Classroom
    • Contests & Challenges
    • External Opportunities
    • Featured Student Works
    • Our Diverse Voices
    • Recommended Reads

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A Creed of Faith by Mychal Wynn (grades 7-9)

February 14, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to Learn more about a creed of faith by mychal wynn

Mychal Wynn is a CEO, father, and author. He promotes equity and access in communities. He grew up poor and was out up for adoption early into his life. In this poem, he writes about the impermanence of life and the challenges, changes, and adversity that you will experience.

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The Last Slave by Marilyn Nelson (grades 4-6)

February 14, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read the last slave by marilyn nelson

Born to a military family in Cleveland, Ohio, Marilyn Nelson started her career as a poet in her elementary school. Her father was one of the last to graduate from Tuskegee Airmen, primarily African American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II. Marilyn is an author and translator for over 20 books for children and grownups. She was a Poet Laureate of Connecticut (2001-2006). Nelson’s work is described as “examining complex issues around race, feminism, and the ongoing trauma of slavery in American life in narratives poised between song and speech.” Her book The Homeplace (1990) depicts her family’s history dating back to the sale of Nelson’s great-great-grandmother into slavery.

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Don't Touch My Hair! by Sharee Miller (grades 1-3)

February 14, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

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Aria loves her hair. It's soft and bouncy, and grows up toward the sun like a flower.

But what will Aria do when curious hands can't resist touching her curls?

Sharee Miller lives and works in Jersey City with her husband and their two cats, Pumpkin and Spice. Her illustrations combine bright colors, patterns, and expressive characters to tell the stories she wishes she had as a kid.

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White Privilege by Kyla J. Lacey (grdes 10+)

February 07, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

clcik here to read White Privilege by Kyla J. Lacey

(Warning: Poem contains mature language)

In her powerful and poignant slam poem, White Privilege, Kyla Jenee Lacey explores both the obvert and subtle privileges that white people experience on a day-to-day basis that BIPOC do not. Through repetition, alliteration, and rhetorical questions for the audience, Lacey demonstrates the inherent contradications and logical fallacies that lead to white people being able to navigate society with ease, but disenfranchise and strip Black people of agency or power. There are few better examples of poems that lay out in plain terms the types of prejudices that Black people have to experience day-to-day that white people would never have to conceive of experiencing.

Kyla Jenee Lacey is an accomplished slam poet whose work has been viewed more than 50 million times on the Internet. She has spoken at over 300 post secondary institutions in over 40 states and has written for publications like Huffington Post, BET.com, and Root magazine.

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Memories of my Youth by Douglas Gary Freeman (grades 7-9)

February 07, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read memories of my youth by douglas gary freeman

Douglas Gary Freeman is the Mississauga-based author of Blue Cage at Midnight inspired by his life as a Black man in the United States during the civil rights movement. Freeman grew up in an inner city neighborhood in Washington, D.C., became an activist in turbulent Chicago, and shot a white police officer in self-defense when he was 19. He fled to Canada in 1969, got married, had four children, and worked as a research librarian in Toronto. Blue Cage at Midnight drew together decades of his poems as he hung in limbo, arrested in 2004 and awaiting extradition to the U.S.—the start of 11 terrible years of legal wrangling. Freeman’s poems, are “spiky, tough, explosive.”

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Africville by Shauntry Grant (grade 4-6)

February 07, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to Learn more about Africville by Shauntry grant

Shauntay Grant is an author, poet, multimedia artist, and a playwright. Her work is influenced by her storytelling roots in the historic Black communities of Nova Scotia - which is evident in her book, Africville. Africville is a poetric and dreamy picture book about a child longing for the culture and celebration of Africville. Filled with back matter, we learn that Africville is an important place to the Black Nova Scotian community, but was torn apart and destroyed by the Halifax city officials in the 1960s. Now, residents return to the area to hold the Africville festival and keep its roots alive.

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The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, Kadir Nelson (Ilt) (grades 1-3)

February 07, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to Learn more about the undefeated by kwame alexander and kadir nelson

Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the accomplishments of the past, while bringing stark attention to the endurance and spirit of those surviving and thriving in the present. Robust back matter at the end provides valuable historical context and additional detail for those wishing to learn more.

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Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye (grades 10+)

February 04, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye

"Burning the Old Year" describes the annual scene of the speaker setting fire to the remnants of her past year and the conflation of the items with the air around her. It touches upon the impermanence of every year, how most of it is combustable and how once burned, one must start anew with little to nothing. The speaker lastly reflects on how the only thing the fire lacks are "the things [she] didn't do".

Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri and is the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate. Earning her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio, Nye has received countless awards and honors for her work including the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement, several Pushcart Prizes and many more. Her work draws from her experience of the many cultures she is a part of and she tends to focus on the minute qualities of life as well as the perspectives of everyday ordinary people.

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Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon (Grades 7-9)

February 04, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon

Ada Limón is the USA’s 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2022-2023. “Ada Limón is a poet who connects,” Congressional Librarian Hayden said. “Her accessible, engaging poems ground us in where we are and who we share our world with. They speak of intimate truths, of the beauty and heartbreak that is living, in ways that help us move forward.” Ada Limón was born in Sonoma, California, in 1976 and is of Mexican ancestry. She is the author of six poetry collections, including “The Carrying” (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry; “Bright Dead Things” (2015), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award; “Sharks in the Rivers” (2010); “Lucky Wreck” (Autumn House, 2006); and “This Big Fake World” (Pearl Editions, 2006). She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

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Poem for Selling Silliness by Fan Chengda (Grades 4-6)

February 04, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read Poem for Selling Silliness by Fan Chengda

Fan Chengda was one of the best known poets of the Song Dynasty in addition to serving as a government official, and an academic authority in geography. He often wrote employed a narrative and prose style approach to writing about one's travel experiences, which was popular in China during the Song Dynasty. He, along with Yang Wanli, Lu You, and You Mao, are considered to be the "four masters" of Southern Song dynasty poetry.
This poem details the ancient Lunar New Year practice of "selling silliness", which brings wishes, both for a long life and increased intelligence.

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January's Sparrow by Patricia Polacco (Grades 1-3)

February 04, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to Learn more about January's Sparrow by Patricia Polacco

In the middle of the night, The Crosswhites - including young Sadie - must flee the Kentucky plantation they work on. Dear January has been beaten and killed by the plantation master, and they fear who may be next. But Sadie must leave behind her most valuable possession, the wooden sparrow carved for her by January. Through the Underground Railroad, the Crosswhites make the slow and arduous journey to Marshall, Michigan, where they finally live in freedom. And there they stay, happily, until the day a mysterious package shows up on their doorsteps. It is January’s sparrow, with a note that reads, “I found you.” How the Crosswhites, and the whole town of Marshall, face this threat will leave readers empowered and enthralled. This is a Polacco adventure that will live in the minds of children for years.

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December 24, 1971 by Joseph Brodsky (grades 10+)

January 24, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read December 24, 1971 by Joseph Brodsky

Iosif Alexandrovich Brodsky was forced to move out of his native country. He later altered his name to fit the western interpretation to Joseph Brodsky. Joseph was born in the middle of WWII to Jewish parents in the Soviet Union. His keen intellect, ironic wit, fiery spirit and thirst for knowledge didn’t align with the ideologies and politics of Soviet Russia and for these reasons he was practically exiled from his home land. Persecuted for his pursuit of artistic and individual voice he was tried and even sent to a labour camp by the government. Described in his own words “They have simply kicked me out of my country, using the Jewish issue as an excuse.” Having moved to Michigan in 1972 Brodsky subsequently taught, pursued his career in writing and was even a recipient of a Nobel Prise for his work.

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On My Way to Liberation (For Pa Howie) by H.Melt (grades 7-9)

January 24, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read on my way for liberation by H.Melt

Writing out of Chicago, H. Melt is a poet, editor and writer, whose books The Plural, The Blurring and On My Way to Liberation focuses on trans and non-binary experience in America. Their work spans multiple disciplines, and has the stated purpose of working "to help keep trans people alive." "On My Way to Liberation" considers the authors family history in relation to their own experience of seeing freedom.

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The Last Cuentisia by Donna Barbra Higuera (grades 4-6)

January 24, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

clcik here to Learn more about The Last Cuentisia by Donna Barbra Higuera

In this fascinating science fiction novel, Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children have been selected to journey to a new planet. Twelve-year-old Petra and her family are among those chosen to help humanity begin again on their new home in the stars. During the centuries-long voyage, they are cryogenically frozen to preserve their bodies, but when they at last wake up, Petra discovers she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have purged the memories of all aboard – or purged them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she keep humanity's history alive?

In The Last Cuentista, author Donna Barba Higuera weaves outer space adventure and Mexican folklore together into a thrilling and thought-provoking adventure.

Writing prompt: Imagine you were leaving earth behind and traveling to a new planet. You can only take one object from home with you. Describe the object you would bring and why you would choose it.

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The Mole and the Sparrow by Kim Schreuder Horn (grades 1-3)

January 24, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to Learn more about the mole and the sparrow by kim schreuder horn

The Mole and New Beginnings is a children's rhyme storybook about being open minded and go on with postivie attitudes to help embrace our fears of change and be grateful of the things that we do have. Author Kim Schreuder Horn says that all of her books hold an important underlying message that will help young children navigate the paths of life and how they chose to live it as the type of person they truly are. Her ideas werefiled from her office, which she had forgetten about. One day as she was doing some office clearning of documents, she came across her writings to rediscover the character of the mole, and the joy for her children's creative writing again.
She works the full time job of being a mother to two teenage girls, a wife, and the Principal Attorney of the law firm she established 20 years ago.

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The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (grades 10+)

January 17, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

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Ken Liu’s short story, The Paper Menagerie deals with the alienation that many first and second generation immigrants feel– both from and towards their host and home culture. This piece explores the relationship between a mother and her son Jack, both who deal with expectations from their society and family differently. To his mom, Jack’s existence is proof that her culture is capable of bringing her joy, and not just the racism that she continually experiences in this foreign land. To Jack, his mom and Chinese heritage are nothing but stumps from an uprooted tree.

Ken Liu is a multiple Hugo Award-winning author in science fiction and fantasy. An innovative writer and pioneer of the “silkpunk” genre with his Dandelion Dynasty series, Ken Liu is a mainstay of modern-day fiction for young adults.

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Beating Hearts and Butterflies by Christine Evangelou (grades 7-9)

January 17, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to Learn more about beating hearts and butterflies by christine evangelou

Christine Evangelou loves to look past wat is visible and tries to find hidden meanings. After an unsuccessful business venture, she decided that she would write about her experiences. In this poem, she writes about persevering and looking past the bad times and always keep a good attitudes in new beginnings.

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1 January 1965 by Joseph Brodsky (grades 4-6)

January 17, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to read 1 january 1965 by joseph brodsky

Iosif Alexandrovich Brodsky was forced to move out of his native country. He later altered his name to fit the western interpretation to Joseph Brodsky. Joseph was born in the middle of WWII to Jewish parents in the Soviet Union. His keen intellect, ironic wit, fiery spirit and thirst for knowledge didn’t align with the ideologies and politics of Soviet Russia and for these reasons he was practically exiled from his home land. Persecuted for his pursuit of artistic and individual voice he was tried and even sent to a labour camp by the government. Described in his own words “They have simply kicked me out of my country, using the Jewish issue as an excuse.” Having moved to Michigan in 1972 Brodsky subsequently taught, pursued his career in writing and was even a recipient of a Nobel Prise for his work.

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Isabel and her Colores Go to School by Alexandra Alessandri (grades 1-3)

January 17, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

click here to Learn more about isabel and her colors go to school by alexandra alessandri

Isabel and her Colores Go to School is a heartwarming story about Isabel's first day of school as a child who doesn't speak much English. She speaks Spanish at home, and she finds herself feeling more and more anxious about what it will be like in a classroom with new friends. When her first day isn't going quite as smoothly has she had hoped, she finds something that gives her some peace - having something in common with another child in the class. She begins to see that while new beginnings can be very scary (at any age!), she can trust in herself and be brave.

Alexandra Alessandri is a Colombian American who grew up in Florida, taking summer trips to Colombia. As a child, she loved the library, and would fill notebooks with her stories and poems. She earned a BA and MA in English literature, and after her father passed away, she found her way back to writing as she used it to reflect and to mourn. You can learn more about her and her upcoming middle grade fantasy novel (described as "Encanto meets the Chronicles of Narnia") here: https://alexandraalessandri.com/

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We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu (grades 10+)

January 10, 2023  /  Will Sengotta

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We Were Dreamers tells the story of Simu Liu's family, all the way from his parents' upbringing in pre and post-Cultural Revolution China to his childhood in Harbin, China before immigrating to Canada. Following a tumultuous and rebellious time as a teenager and a failed accounting career, Simu Liu realized that his calling lay in acting and began his Hollywood journey one role at a time. We Were Dreamers celebrates the dreams we all have for ourselves as well as the dreams immigrants have for their families.

Simu Liu is a Canadian actor and author best known for his roles as Jung Kim in Kim's Convenience and as Shang-Chi in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2015, his work on the drama series Blood and Water also earned him a Canadian Screen Awards and an ACTRA Awards nominations. In 2022, Time Magazine listed him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. We Were Dreamers became an instant New York Times bestseller upon publication in Spring 2022.

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