In a companion volume to The Dragons Are Singing Tonight (1993), a talented duo introduces a variety of trolls, ogres, witches, a bigfoot, and a yeti. Prelutsky's verse is as rhythmic as ever and full of child- pleasing grotty humor, with crotchety witches and grubby goblins fully present. The first poem, ``I Told the Wizard to His Face,'' sets the tone as a bratty boy regales a wizard with variations of the word fraud: ``Since then I've been but two feet tall/and have a hamster's head.'' S°s captures the spirit of the book perfectly in his spreads framed with fabulous borders. The settings range from modern urban to mythical or medieval. Favorite pieces will be ``Mother Ogre's Lullaby'' and the title poem, but every poem will be relished, come Halloween or any time of the year. (Picture book/poetry. 4-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-688-09644-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“It’s wise to stay clear / Of the dangerous cobra / All months of the year, / Including Octobra.” But it wouldn’t be wise to stay clear of Florian’s latest poetry collection, sixth in his successful series of witty poems and paintings about creatures of all sorts (Mammalabilia: Poems and Paintings, 2000, etc.). This volume includes 21 short poems about reptiles and amphibians, including common creatures such as the bullfrog and the box turtle and more exotic specimens such as the komodo dragon and the red-eyed tree frog. Teachers will like the way the rhyming poems integrate into elementary science lessons, imparting some basic zoological facts along with the giggles, and kids will love the poems because they’re clever and funny in a style reminiscent of Ogden Nash, full of wordplay and sly humor. Florian’s impressionistic full-page illustrations are done in watercolors on primed, brown paper bags, often offering another layer of humor, as in the orange newt reading the Newt News on the cover. A first choice for the poetry shelves in all libraries, this collection is toadally terrific. (Poetry. 4-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202591-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S POETRY
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This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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