SCIEN-TRICKERY

Lewis follows up Arithme-tickle (2002) with a more broadly themed collection of rhymed riddles, encompassing topics as diverse as astronomy, electricity, maps, and the Zero. Most of the verse is typically effervescent—“I am expressible / only by decibel”—and riddle-impaired readers will not only find plenty of visual clues supplied by a crew of children in Remkiewicz’s bright cartoon scenes, but the answers themselves, printed upside down at the bottom of each page. Though some of the writing is less than first-rate—Einstein’s formulas are “So amazing, they contain / Stuff exclusively for brains!”—and the smudged, discolored sheets of notebooks paper on which each poem is placed give the art an unpleasantly oily look, there is plenty here to engage both the minds and the funnybones of young readers. (explanatory end notes) (Poetry. 7-10)