BEYOND OLD MACDONALD

In 30 short verses, an educator puts an assortment of livestock through some unusual paces to demonstrate homophones, personification, alliteration and such other “language skills” as idioms and puns, e.g., “I went under the fence this morning. / No one knows where I am. / I love the freedom that I’ve found. / I’m a sheep that’s on the lam.” Fernandes surrounds each poem with crowded, lively scenes of cheerful livestock and rural folk, from a dancing cow in a muumuu (“it makes her calves look small”) to a bevy of ovine recreationers in search of “sheep thrills.” Hoce makes no effort to be systematic, though he does identify a few of his examples in a closing list; readers or listeners may still be inspired by his efforts to try some wordplay of their own. (Poetry. 8-10)