PERFORMANCE POETRY: The Friendly Four

The Friendly Four by Eloise Greenfield and Jan Spivey Gilchrist

Bibliography: 

Greenfield, Eloise, and Jan Spivey Gilchrist. The Friendly Four. New York: HarperCollins/Amistad, 2006. Print.

Review:

The Friendly Four is a precious story of four friends who find authentic friendship despite their individual struggles at home. The book opens with Drummond a young boy who sick of waiting around for his baby sibling to become alert, so he can live his life. Alas Drum finds friendship in Dorene a young girl who is new to the neighborhood. Next the duo meets Louis who has been adopted by a new family and is new to the neighborhood as well, finally they meet up with Rae who is Dorene's cousin who is just visiting until her mother gets well. The story of these young friends is told in six parts each one articulating how the friends meet, what they do to have fun during the summer, and finally the dreadful goodbyes at the end of summer. Greenfield tells the story of each friend through verse and a form of dialogue. The poems bounce between different speakers with each speaker represented by a different color, in addition their are also lines written as "all" to indicated that this is a line spoke by each of the Friendly Four. '

Eloise Greenfield writes a touching story that should be spoken by a young audience. The verse picture book tells the complicated stories of four young friends dealing with lives difficult situations, but the voice and the word choice keeps the story age appropriate.

Spotlight Poem:

The poem Punished is read by all of the four friends and is best when it is read aloud. The poem is accompanied by a picture of each child looking out the window with a hint of regret for their poor choice from earlier in the day. The use of punctuation, specifically commas, gives the poem a rhythm that mimics that of a stream of thought. Also, the use of line breaks puts the emphasis on what the children have done wrong or what they wish they were doing. This would be a great way to teach purposeful line breaks. 

Punished 
All: I'm looking out my window,
wishing I hadn't done it.
I could be with my friends, right now,
having fun.
It's not as if we didn't know. 
We went where we weren't 
supposed to go.
The grown-ups had told us not to travel
beyond the corner tree. 
When they looked, they couldn't find us
not to forget to remember 
where we're supposed to be. 

Follow-up Activity:

Of course this poem has to be assigned roles and read aloud. So, I would do just that I would assign each group a page or pages depending on the number of students; then I would have those students read and act out each of their assigned pages. I can also see this entire book being used as a grade wide play or musical almost. It is so engaging and so many different ways for students to interpret the roles. The thoughts and feelings of each of the Friendly Four are well-crafted through a thoughtful voice, it would be heart-warming to see it being read to an audience of adults.