``I wonder if a little breeze,/too small to play upon the trees,/can play on spider webs?'' asks Aileen Fisher, in a typically short poem in this collection on the subject of the wind. Among the contributors of the 27 selections are those associated with children's poetry—e.g., Eve Merriam and Norma Farber—as well as such familiar writers as Carl Sandburg, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Christina Rossetti. The mood ranges from wishful musing to adventurous to scary. The book is a pleasing, practical size, with one-color illustrations in sepia pencil. Meret offers literal interpretations of the wind's pranks, with women's hair flying, stormy shipwrecks, galloping horsemen, and furniture sailing in a tornado. Although so many of the pieces are available in other volumes, the wind's ways form a benevolent umbrella under which to collect them anew. (indexes) (Poetry. 7-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81544-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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