My little kitten must be taught to read
Or else he’ll grow to be a stupid cat,
And that would be an awful thing indeed
To have a stupid little pet like that!
I want my little kitten to be smart
I even named him Socrates, because
I think philosophy should be the start
Of everything my kitten thinks or does.
And so I walk with Socrates each day
And say to him, “Now say your ABCs.”
But all he says is “mew,” then runs away,
Although I think he does it just to tease.
I’ll read to him from Shakespeare’s plays tonight
Before I try to teach him how to write.

The bright young boy, slept on his side
The more he slept, the less he cried
The less he cried, the more he dreamed
And that’s why the boy was so bright it seemed!

---

Elephant Dream

An elephant dream, an elephant dream
As big as a house the elephant seems
As high as the clouds, we ride on its back
An ugly woman and a boy named Jack
And I tell the driver to take us home
But the great big elephant wants to roam
So the ugly woman screams out in fright
And the boy named Jack cowers out of sight
Oh where are we going? Nobody knows
But the elephant runs wherever he goes
His feet sound like thunder below his knees
He doesn’t slow down for mountains or trees
The riding is fast and everything seems
Oh, so exciting in elephant dreams!

Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words can break my heart
Speech is free, but it can be
A costly way to start!

Words are only sounds we hear
To tell the way we feel
I can make a sound that’s fake
But feelings are for real!

While working on a project to put my kids sonnets with pictures onto greeting cards, my son, Daniel, drew this picture and called it “A Thousand Lines.” What a beautiful metaphor. So I wrote the following sonnet to go with his picture.

A thousand lines are perfect, arrow straight
I drew them with a ruler to be sure
But simple lines can have a complex fate
Although they never change from what they were
Illusions make a thousand lines look curved
Although they’re arrow straight and never bend
Their fate is the illusion they deserved
I hope your view of them will not descend
The circle that you see, in complex lines
Appears like magic, in my rulered sketch
I like to think about their “trick” designs
And all the things they make my mind “go fetch”
I’ll draw a thousand lines, a thousand times
And make them into poetry that rhymes.

Kids ABC Electronic Storybook

Kids ABC

This is the physical book on lulu.com.  It will be available on Amazon.com in a couple of weeks.

Kids_ABC (This is the downloadable PDF.)

This is yet another kids book I found and have been updating to share.  Let me know what you think.

The Leaf King Electronic Storybook

The Leaf King

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I am the Leaf King, the King of the Leaves
My kingdom goes up to the tops of the trees
Wherever sun shines and gentle winds blow
Wherever it rains, my green subjects grow

I am the Leaf King, the Sun is my friend
He heats up in Spring and makes Winter end
His sisters, the Clouds, bring rain that is clean
To make my kingdom and castle so green

I am the Leaf King and high in the trees
My subjects whisper and dance in the breeze
They sit on their branches, away up high
Laughing and dancing and brushing the sky

I am the Leaf King and all Summer long
I hear the Leaves as they sing their leaf songs
I like to sleep in the leafy leaf shade
Happy to nap where their shadows are laid

I am the Leaf King, the king of them all
I paint the leaves different colors in Fall
Yellow and orange and red, gold and brown
Dressing them all up before they come down

I am the Leaf King, when Autumn is done
I walk to the West; I follow the Sun
Happy to know that I’ll still be the king
When all the Leaves sprout once again in the Spring

Here is a story I wrote a few years ago. I found the illustrator Karin Sköld, online and she did an awesome job with the pictures! Enjoy.

PDFs:

Feed_My_Sheep

Here it is in Spanish:

Apacienta Mis Ovejas

MP3 (Read by me, Scott Ennis):

Feed My Sheep by Scott Ennis

Buy the Book!

 

This is a story I wrote based on a little brown sparrow I saw in Minneapolis one day with a HUGE cheese puff in his beak!

The Little Brown Sparrow and the Big Orange Cheese Puff