Making a strong bid for the year’s most uproarious set of new verse, this collection opens with a “Whoosh!”—“The wind is blowing / quite a breeze. / The wind is blowing / on my knees. / The wind is blowing / its spring dance. / It tells me I / forgot my pants.” It closes by rhyming “laugh” with “giraffe,” and in between delivers an unrelieved spate of clever knee-slappers on topics from sports to siblings, shopping to passing gas. Koren illustrates each of the 100-plus entries with characteristic crosshatch sketches—mostly of children wearing innocent, glum, annoyed or ingratiating looks, as appropriate. Katz’s earlier outings, most of which were illustrated by David Catrow, may have more visual flash, but this one’s both larger and more suited to independent readers. Children—never mind adults—will find the urge to read aloud from these pages well nigh irresistible. One more: “I stuffed my lunch / in my race car— / salami and some soda. / It used to be a Chevy, / but it now is a / Toy-odor.” (Poetry. 7-11)
Pub Date: March 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-0204-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2008
With an eye toward easy memorization, Katz gathers over 50 short poems from the likes of Emily Dickinson, Valerie Worth, Jack Prelutsky, and Lewis Carroll, to such anonymous gems as “The Burp”—“Pardon me for being rude. / It was not me, it was my food. / It got so lonely down below, / it just popped up to say hello.” Katz includes five of her own verses, and promotes an evident newcomer, Emily George, with four entries. Hafner surrounds every selection with fine-lined cartoons, mostly of animals and children engaged in play, reading, or other familiar activities. Amid the ranks of similar collections, this shiny-faced newcomer may not stand out—but neither will it drift to the bottom of the class. (Picture book/poetry. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-525-47172-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
A dozen familiar dinosaurs introduce themselves in verse in this uninspired, if colorful, new animal gallery from the authors of Commotion in the Ocean (2000). Smiling, usually toothily, and sporting an array of diamonds, lightning bolts, spikes and tiger stripes, the garishly colored dinosaurs make an eye-catching show, but their comments seldom measure up to their appearance: “I’m a swimming reptile, / I dive down in the sea. / And when I spot a yummy squid, / I eat it up with glee!” (“Ichthyosaurus”) Next to the likes of Kevin Crotty’s Dinosongs (2000), illustrated by Kurt Vargo, or Jack Prelutsky’s classic Tyrannosaurus Was A Beast (1988), illustrated by Arnold Lobel, there’s not much here to roar about. (Picture book/poetry. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-58925-044-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
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