TIMOTHY TUNNY SWALLOWED A BUNNY

Eighteen slaphappy poems play nimbly with words, names, and crazy situations. Grossman goes for the yucks with these loopy rhymes, but there’s a hint of sophistication: “Timothy Tunny / Swallowed a bunny. / The bunny got lodged in his throat. / ‘That bunny looks funny,’ / His mom said, ‘but Honey, / Be thankful it isn’t a goat.’ ” And there are a number that have the mischief of a Shel Silverstein poem—“A witch mean and bad / Imprisoned poor Dad /In a bottle of pop in the closet. / We couldn’t free Dad / And were sad when we had / To return him for the nickel deposit.” For all the nonsense and whimsy, young readers will come away from the verse with a good sense of the suppleness of language and how it can be an agent of abiding humor. “Harold B. Bound / Turned his eyeballs around / To see all the thoughts in his head. / What do you see / In your head. Harold B.? / ‘Nothing but cobwebs,’ he said.” Hawkes is the perfect zany artist to interpret these silly poems with images that would draw laughs even without the words. His deep-dish colors mind the music and the footwork of Grossman's highly visual wordplay. (Picture book. 3-7)