In short poems arranged for two voices, a dog converses with forest denizens (owl, moth, squirrel) and features (a trail, a brook, a tree): “Woodpecker, / Woodpecker, / what do you see? / Juicy bugs / inside this tree!” Some of the exchanges are inane—to a hungry spider: “Spider, Spider, / looking thinner. / Haven’t had a thing for dinner! / Maybe you built your web too high. / I want to catch a buzzy fly! /And if the fly just buzzes by? / I’ll sit here by myself and sigh”—but Harrison does at least vary the verse structure toward the end, and Johnson-Petrov’s woodland scenes, thinly brushed onto rough canvas, feature an appealingly wide-eyed border collie that bounds about all day, then returns for an affectionate nose-to-nose reunion with his master. An acceptable, if uneven, read-aloud candidate. (Picture book/poetry. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-59078-242-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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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 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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BOOK REVIEW
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“Little boy blue / come blow your tuba. / The sheep are in Venice, / and the cow’s in Aruba.” Pairing frenetic and garishly colored art to familiar rhymes in “more modern, more fresh, and well…more Goosian” versions, Seibold stakes out Stinky Cheese Man territory to introduce “Jack and Jill / and a pickle named Bill,” the Old Woman Who Lived in a Sneaker (“She had a great big stereo speaker”), Peter Pumpkin Pickle Pepper and about two dozen more “re-nurseried” figures. Against patterned or spray-painted backgrounds, an entire page of umbrella-carrying raindrops float down, a bunch of mice run up (“the clock struck one; / the rest had fun”), cats fiddle for Old King Coal and others, Jack B. Nimble makes a lifelong career out of demonstrating his one trick and a closing rendition of the counting rhyme “One, Two, I Lost My Shoe” is transformed into a clever reprise as many of the characters return to take final bows. Sparkles on the cover; chuckles (despite some lame rhyming) throughout. (Fractured nursery rhymes. 7-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8118-6882-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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