Paul B. Janeczko's stirring new collection of poems goes inside the walls of the notorious camp to portray the indomitable spirit of those incarcerated there.
Hitler hailed Terezin (Theresienstadt) as a haven for artistic Jews, when in reality the Czech concentration camp was little more than a way station to the gas chambers. In his second book inspired by devastating history, acclaimed poet Paul B. Janeczko gives voice to this heartrending creative community: its dignity, resilience, and commitment to art and music in the face of great brutality. The many memorable characters he conjures include a child who performs in the camp's now famed production of Brundibar, a man who lectures on bedbugs, and a boy known as "Professor," who keeps a notebook hidden in his shoe. Accented with dramatic illustrations by prisoners, found after WW II, Janeczko's spare and powerful poems convey Terezin's tragic legacy on an intimate, profoundly moving scale.

Whether rhyming, tongue-tying, or defying structure, here are more than three dozen poems that simply beg to be read aloud. The creators of A POKE IN THE I and A KICK IN THE HEAD complete a triplet with this collection of lively rhymes and tricky tongue twisters, poems for more than one voice, bilingual poems -- and poems that may just inspire kids to memorize them. Paul B. Janeczko offers a range of gems, from classic Shakespeare and Lear to anonymous rhymes to contemporary riffs on everything under the sun, while Chris Raschka counterpoints with the vibrant accents of his wittily detailed artwork.

"The author's upbeat, positive tone is refreshing and his enthusiasm about his topic is contagious." -- SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review)
Pssst! Do you know the difference between a code and a cipher? Can you tell a St. Cyr slide from a Cardano grille? Did you know that the discovery of a substitution cipher caused Mary Queen of Scots to lose her head? Don't look now, but packed into this practical field guide is everything a young person needs to know about the art of concealment - making and breaking codes, mastering cipher systems, and experimenting with secret writing. Offering plenty of hands-on practice sessions, tips for creating a code-making kit, sidebars on secret codes in history, and an amusing pair of spies to illustrate techniques, Paul B. Janeczko's tantalizing TOP SECRET won't stay a secret for long.

In this guide for aspiring young writers, poets speak about their work and give examples as well as encouraging tips. "A natural for creative-writing classes," this book shows that "it can be a lot of fun to write about what you imagine" (Booklist").

In this award-winning anthology, the editors grouped almost 200 poems into pairs to demonstrate the different ways in which male and female poets see the same topics. How women see men, how boys see girls, and how we all see the world -- often in very different ways, but suprisingly, wonderfully, sometimes very much the same.