POEM IN MY POCKET

An unnamed protagonist arrives home with a poem in their pocket.

Unfortunately, the protagonist doesn’t realize that that pocket has a hole in it. Words, verses, and stanzas tumble out of the poet’s pocket, and a sudden wind scatters them down the stairs and into the neighborhood. Before long, the mischievous letters of the poem wreak good-natured havoc, fabricating new nonsensical words, creating new rhymes, and filling the world with puns. The poet runs after the letters, trying to catch them. Eventually, the poet gathers the letters together and tries to re-create the original poem only to find that it is a puzzle they are unable to solve. When the wind dies down, the rain starts, and the words are scattered again. Will the poet be able to re-create their poem? Or would words and letters rather be free to play? This rhyming picture book is a celebration of the flexibility of language. The illustrations incorporate age-appropriate puns, nonsense words, and other forms of wordplay that are sure to delight young readers and the adults who read to them. Although the text does not explicitly embrace diverse themes, in the illustrations, the protagonist is an ambiguously gendered kid of color. The brightly colored landscape looks urban, but it could be set almost anywhere in the world.

This book about wordplay strikes the write balance between silly and sincere.