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TONGUE TEASERS

LAUGH-ALONG SONGBOOK ORIGINS - A TASTE OF THE POEMS BEFORE THE MUSIC

A smart, hilarious, and highly creative poetry collection.

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Author-illustrator Knight’s book of rhyming poems emphasizes fun, wordplay, and imagination.

The rhyming metered verse of many of the works in this book could prepare a young reader to love, instead of fear, classic poetry. “Bubba Bogans,” for instance, is an enjoyably silly poem with sound devices that echo the work of Alfred, Lord Tennyson: “Again, aboard the boat he’d bought, / Upon the billowed brine, / A hopeful Bubba Bogans sought / The creature’s island shrine.” In “Book Problem,” a tome named Sarah has a crush on a hardcover named Ben, but she’s too shy to tell him: “So days went by, then weeks and months, / And soon her friends agreed / That Ben was great except that he / Was just too hard to read.” “The Giant,” short and sharp, reads like a Leonard Cohen work for kids: “Strong and fierce the giant came / And tore the town to tatters. / He caught the king then - never mind, / That’s all that really matters.” There’s no shortage of puns throughout the book, as well. In “The Sun,” the titular heavenly body plans a feast and that learns no one will share it: “The poor sunset his table for one.” Some poems are song lyrics, and a QR code on the first page of the book links to accompanying music. Poems about butts, flatulence, and boogers come in quick succession in “Double Moon Dilemma,” “Jacuzzi,” and “Booger,” respectively. Other works, though, are more sensitive and revealing: “The Tribe,” for instance, is about valuing things other than appearances and material wealth; “Soar Like a Ninja” effectively acknowledges the existence of external and internal bullies. The narcissistic speaker of “Number One” may help young readers spot such unpleasant behavior in real life. Knight’s black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings initially seem like mere doodles, but they prove to be incredibly complex; some of the more fantastical poems end with wildly detailed two-page spreads. There’s an undeniably addictive quality to this book, and the rhythm and irrepressible images will likely make youngsters want to keep reading

A smart, hilarious, and highly creative poetry collection.

Pub Date: July 24, 2024

ISBN: 9781953411426

Page Count: 88

Publisher: Giggle Spoon

Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2024

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

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LOVE FROM THE CRAYONS

As ephemeral as a valentine.

Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.

Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.

As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)

Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021

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