More clever wordplay from the Prince of Palindromes—not to mention 2006’s Smart Feller / Fart Smeller and Other Spoonerisms—these 34 rhymed riffs on variously challenging tongue twisters will trip up even lingually limber readers. Though incorporating both short phrases (“Knapsack Straps,” “a used yellow yo-yo”) and such longer constructs as “reading rotten written writing really is a pain” and “If you offer moose muesli, / They’ll thank you profusely,” at first glance the brief verses look easy to read aloud—a deceptive impression that the pale, comical, watery-looking cartoon illustrations do nothing to dispel. “Purple-Paper People” depicts the purple-bedraped meeting room of the Purple-Paper People Club, into which an intruder has brought an orange sheet. “I Saw Esau” features a group of children and a seesaw, with diagrammatic lines indicating who saw whom. Agee acknowledges Alvin Schwartz’s A Twister of Twists, A Tangler of Tongues (1972) as a major source, but adds his own distinctive mix of simplicity and sophisticated wit to this top-notch tub full of tangue tonglers. (index) (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4231-0315-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2009
With an eye toward easy memorization, Katz gathers over 50 short poems from the likes of Emily Dickinson, Valerie Worth, Jack Prelutsky, and Lewis Carroll, to such anonymous gems as “The Burp”—“Pardon me for being rude. / It was not me, it was my food. / It got so lonely down below, / it just popped up to say hello.” Katz includes five of her own verses, and promotes an evident newcomer, Emily George, with four entries. Hafner surrounds every selection with fine-lined cartoons, mostly of animals and children engaged in play, reading, or other familiar activities. Amid the ranks of similar collections, this shiny-faced newcomer may not stand out—but neither will it drift to the bottom of the class. (Picture book/poetry. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-525-47172-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
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 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
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