Pop Sonnets by Erik Didriksen

So, the whole point of the book talks that I make my students do in class is that it starts the conversation. Many of my students can't conceive of having a meaningful conversation about a book which means that even if they enjoy what they read, they are isolated and the experience is disconnected from the rest of their lives. Therefore, the book talk. In an ideal world the kid does a book talk and some other kid says something like "hey, that sounds, cool can I borrow it." In all honesty, it takes a while before it starts to happen, but at this point in the school year, I have observed some books traveling around between students.

Often, it all starts by the students publicly offering me the book or by me asking to borrow it. I get a small percentage of my yearly reading that way. Pop Sonnets is an example of that. Alex did his book talk on it Thursday and it sounded so amusing that I asked to borrow it. It's a collection of sonnets written that adapt popular song lyrics into Shakespearean style sonnets; Didriksen even tries to mimic Shakespearean diction.

The range is pretty impressive. In there is Beyonce, Chuck Berry, Outkast, even Rick Astley and Rebecca Black (that girl who's birthday vanity video went viral online). Apparently, this all started as a tumblr blog.

My thought was that Ryan would really enjoy them and I was right. We read them over the course of the weekend and he's started writing his own. I think he's done three of them so far. It's all a lot of fun and I think I need to buy a copy to keep in a classroom for when I teach my seniors Shakespeare's sonnets.