In 18 very short poems, Hopkins returns to one of his favorite subjects, adopting a child’s voice (or once a mother pigeon’s) to express deep affection for city life, sights, buildings, noises, subways, entertainments and seasons. Reminiscent of Marc Simont’s art but with a more sinuous, energetic line, Hall’s watercolor urban scenes capture the big city’s scale while depicting both its bustle and its quieter corners. Tucking in identifiable landmarks or the occasional non-Roman sign, he takes a backpack-toting canine tourist and a small blue bird from San Francisco to Cairo, New Orleans to London, and leaves them at last on a building top, gazing sleepily out onto a generic moonlit skyline. Though ten of the selections were previously published in some form, their overall simplicity lends each an enduring freshness: “Sing a song of cities. / If you do, / Cities will sing back / to you.” Endpaper maps identify the cities depicted, though a key to assist untraveled children in the game is absent. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8327-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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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