April Halprin Wayland

April Halprin Wayland is the author of seven children’s books, including New Year at the Pier: A Rosh Hashanah Story (2009), for which she won a Sydney Taylor Book Award for Younger Readers, and one teen novel in verse, Girl Coming in for a Landing: A Novel in Poems (2002), which was nominated by the American Library Association as a Best Book for Young Adults, named a Lee Bennett Hopkins Honor Book for Children's Poetry, and won the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry. When she is not writing, Wayland teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers Program, writes for the Teaching Authors blog, plays the fiddle, and is active in politics at the local and national levels. She currently lives in California. Source

SPRING BREAK

The best clouds in the business

are right above me

right now.

We’re riding in this teal convertible

those clouds just dozing

in about forty-nine different shapes

white as clean paper,

their edges like feathers against the blue sky,

blue as Dad’s eyes.

Dad drives, my sister’s in front

I lay my head on Mom’s lap in the back.

I lay my head on her lap as he drives

this teal convertible that we rented special

just for these four days in Albuquerque.

In it, we are open to the whole world

to the whole sky

and I know right now

I can see

that these are

the best clouds in the business.

Published:

2002

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Childhood & Coming of Age

Family