Sentimental but never corny, Stevenson offers more sweet kernels of verbal and visual poetry, celebrating the everyday world of cookies, ice cream, and old shoes, a seaside tire exposed at low tide, “growing its own seaweed and barnacles,” a partly demolished house, a closed-down diner, images evoked by a clutter of objects on a kitchen windowsill. Or, he wonders, what do umbrellas think of the world (“Every time they go outside, it’s raining.”); who lives in that rickety old house with the fold-down dock; what would it feel like to jump barefoot into a box of jelly doughnuts? As beguiling for its pleasant unpredictability of topic and errant play of colors and typography as for its splashy, sketchy, perfect illustrations, this silky gathering is an irresistible invitation to harvest library shelves for his four previous collections. Time spent stalking this poet is never frittered away. (Poetry. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17303-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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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