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As clever and funny as the poetry of Jack Prelutsky in his prime and less edgy than Shel Silverstein’s, this deserves and...

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POEMS I WROTE WHEN NO ONE WAS LOOKING

Name: POEMS I WROTE WHEN NO ONE WAS LOOKING
Author: Alan Katz
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3518-6

by Alan Katz and illustrated by Edward Koren ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 2011

Katz and Koren follow up Oops! (2008) with another set of 100 or so rhymed (usually) knee-slappers paired to scribbly ink drawings.

So brisk and varied is the mix of wordplay (“I don’t like the ampersand. / You can’t hold it in your h&”), family humor and short meditations on food preferences, procrastination, peculiar traits of sibs, why there’s only one in a “pair” of underwear and like topics that it’s hard to stop reading—or reading aloud, for that matter. It’s all as child-friendly as can be, and the versifier’s casual tone finds echoes in the illustrator’s crosshatched sketches of figures showing a range of expressions while glancing bashfully or distractedly off to the side.

As clever and funny as the poetry of Jack Prelutsky in his prime and less edgy than Shel Silverstein’s, this deserves and should have no trouble drawing chuckles and belly laughs from a wide audience, even outside the confines of National Poetry Month. (Poetry. 7-11)

Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4169-3518-6

Page Count: 160

Publisher: McElderry

Review Posted Online: April 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010

Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY

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- BOOK REVIEW
MISTY THE CLOUD
by Dylan Dreyer with Alan Katz ; illustrated by Rosie Butcher

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THE GREAT ESCAPE
by Alan Katz ; illustrated by Alex Lopez

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THE LIEOGRAPHY OF AMELIA EARHART
by Alan Katz ; illustrated by Tracy Hill

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Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing.

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WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!

by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Both technique and imaginative impulse can be found in this useful selection of poems about the literary art.

Starting with the essentials of the English language, the letters of “Our Alphabet,” the collection moves through 21 other poems of different types, meters, and rhyme schemes. This anthology has clear classroom applications, but it will also be enjoyed by individual readers who can pore carefully over playful illustrations filled with diverse children, butterflies, flowers, books, and pieces of writing. Tackling various parts of the writing process, from “How To Begin” through “Revision Is” to “Final Edit,” the poems also touch on some reasons for writing, like “Thank You Notes” and “Writing About Reading.” Some of the poems are funny, as in the quirky, four-line “If I Were an Octopus”: “I’d grab eight pencils. / All identical. / I’d fill eight notebooks. / One per tentacle.” An amusing undersea scene dominated by a smiling, orangy octopus fills this double-page spread. Some of the poems are more focused (and less lyrical) than others, such as “Final Edit” with its ending stanzas: “I check once more to guarantee / all is flawless as can be. / Careless errors will discredit / my hard work. / That’s why I edit. / But I don’t like it. / There I said it.” At least the poet tries for a little humor in those final lines.

Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-68437-362-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills

Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY

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- BOOK REVIEW
THAT MISSING FEELING
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Morena Forza

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WITH MY HANDS
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Lou Fancher & Steve Johnson

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DREAMING OF YOU
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Aaron DeWitt

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Some issues with design and tone but a mostly worthy appreciation of the women who stood and stand (if, sometimes, only...

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HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT LADY BIRD?

POEMS ABOUT OUR FIRST LADIES

by Marilyn Singer ; illustrated by Nancy Carpenter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 16, 2018

“We know Eleanor Roosevelt, Abigail Adams, / but what about those other madams”?

For each first lady from Martha Washington (“Raised to be a planter’s wife, / taught how one behaves / as mistress of the household / and the household slaves”) to immigrant Melania Trump, Singer offers a thumbnail character study in verse that’s paired to an ink-and-wash figure by Carpenter. If there is any common theme, it’s mortality: Martha Jefferson, who died 19 years before her husband’s election, is represented by a framed silhouette over a silent pianoforte; Peggy Taylor lies prostrate before a tombstone; a veiled Jackie Kennedy looks out from an antique TV screen. Singer likewise often includes mention of lost husbands or children among references to favored causes and personal accomplishments. On the other hand, Mary Todd Lincoln, generously summed up as “an unlucky woman—kindly and cursed,” poses regally as her brown-skinned dressmaker (unnamed in the poem but identified in the endnotes) cuts up an American flag to make a gown while Abe stands nearby, gaping comically at a sheaf of bills. Brief profiles at the end add some detail but mostly just recap the poems’ content, and a pictorial timeline on the rear endpapers would serve as an index if the jacket flap didn’t cover a good portion of it.

Some issues with design and tone but a mostly worthy appreciation of the women who stood and stand (if, sometimes, only figuratively) next to the presidents. (Poetry/collective biography. 7-10)