In their fifth mother-son collaboration (Color Me a Rhyme, 2000, etc.), Stemple’s bird photos spark 14 poems from the prolific Yolen, with added captions for all but the final pairing folding in snippets of natural history. The pictures, taken in the southern or western US, are mostly of aquatic birds or raptors, and so sharply focused that each tiny feather on the anhinga’s neck, each lapidary detail of the turkey buzzard’s scarlet head, is plain to see. Yolen writes with terse lucidity, her thoughts alternating between prey/predator relationships, and moments of beauty: “As if sunshine / fell down on a branch, / then gathered itself together / for one solid moment, / the warbler brightens spring.” Recently hatched ornithologists and fans of Yolen’s Bird Watch (1990) hoping for more of the same will warble over this fresh gathering of words and images. (Poetry. 7-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56397-904-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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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