More than 20 clever riddles keep the pages turning as two children make their way through their days. Each two-page spread features a rhyming quatrain and an illustration that hints at the answer to the riddle. The following page offers the answer both textually and in the illustration. Unfortunately, what is a good concept fails in execution. The substitutions in meter are sometimes interesting, but overall the meter has the simplistic sing-song pattern of a greeting card. The lines also seem like they are forced in service to the rhyme, instead of letting the rhyme occur organically, in service to the narrative. Additionally, the hints drawn into each scene are too obvious, keeping it from being much of a brainteaser for even a young child. Finally, the illustrations, while colorful, are not enough to keep this book on track. At times clever, but mostly unsatisfying, this just misses its mark. (Poetry. 6-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-87483-730-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little Folk/August House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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