POEMS I WROTE WHEN NO ONE WAS LOOKING

Name: POEMS I WROTE WHEN NO ONE WAS LOOKING
Author: Alan Katz
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3518-6

by Alan Katz and illustrated by Edward Koren ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 2011

As clever and funny as the poetry of Jack Prelutsky in his prime and less edgy than Shel Silverstein’s, this deserves and...

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Katz and Koren follow up Oops! (2008) with another set of 100 or so rhymed (usually) knee-slappers paired to scribbly ink drawings.

So brisk and varied is the mix of wordplay (“I don’t like the ampersand. / You can’t hold it in your h&”), family humor and short meditations on food preferences, procrastination, peculiar traits of sibs, why there’s only one in a “pair” of underwear and like topics that it’s hard to stop reading—or reading aloud, for that matter. It’s all as child-friendly as can be, and the versifier’s casual tone finds echoes in the illustrator’s crosshatched sketches of figures showing a range of expressions while glancing bashfully or distractedly off to the side.

As clever and funny as the poetry of Jack Prelutsky in his prime and less edgy than Shel Silverstein’s, this deserves and should have no trouble drawing chuckles and belly laughs from a wide audience, even outside the confines of National Poetry Month. (Poetry. 7-11)

Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4169-3518-6

Page Count: 160

Publisher: McElderry

Review Posted Online: April 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
GOT YOUR NOSE!
by Alan Katz ; illustrated by Alex Willan

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY SANTA DAY!
by Alan Katz ; illustrated by Sernur Işık

- BOOK REVIEW
MISTY THE CLOUD
by Dylan Dreyer with Alan Katz ; illustrated by Rosie Butcher

COUNTING IN DOG YEARS AND OTHER SASSY MATH POEMS

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COUNTING IN DOG YEARS AND OTHER SASSY MATH POEMS

by Betsy Franco ; illustrated by Priscilla Tey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2022

Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two.

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Rollicking verses on “numerous” topics.

Returning to the theme of her Mathematickles! (2003), illustrated by Steven Salerno, Franco gathers mostly new ruminations with references to numbers or arithmetical operations. “Do numerals get out of sorts? / Do fractions get along? / Do equal signs complain and gripe / when kids get problems wrong?” Along with universal complaints, such as why 16 dirty socks go into a washing machine but only 12 clean ones come out or why there are “three months of summer / but nine months of school!" (“It must have been grown-ups / who made up / that rule!”), the poet offers a series of numerical palindromes, a phone number guessing game, a two-voice poem for performative sorts, and, to round off the set, a cozy catalog of countable routines: “It’s knowing when night falls / and darkens my bedroom, / my pup sleeps just two feet from me. / That watching the stars flicker / in the velvety sky / is my glimpse of infinity!” Tey takes each entry and runs with it, adding comically surreal scenes of appropriately frantic or settled mood, generally featuring a diverse group of children joined by grotesques that look like refugees from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two. (Poetry/mathematical picture book. 8-11)

Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-5362-0116-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
A SPECTACULAR SELECTION OF SEA CRITTERS
by Betsy Franco ; illustrated by Michael Wertz

- BOOK REVIEW
DOUBLE PLAY
by Betsy Franco & illustrated by Doug Cushman

- BOOK REVIEW
METAMORPHOSIS
by Betsy Franco & illustrated by Tom Franco

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WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!

by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater ; illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing.

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Both technique and imaginative impulse can be found in this useful selection of poems about the literary art.

Starting with the essentials of the English language, the letters of “Our Alphabet,” the collection moves through 21 other poems of different types, meters, and rhyme schemes. This anthology has clear classroom applications, but it will also be enjoyed by individual readers who can pore carefully over playful illustrations filled with diverse children, butterflies, flowers, books, and pieces of writing. Tackling various parts of the writing process, from “How To Begin” through “Revision Is” to “Final Edit,” the poems also touch on some reasons for writing, like “Thank You Notes” and “Writing About Reading.” Some of the poems are funny, as in the quirky, four-line “If I Were an Octopus”: “I’d grab eight pencils. / All identical. / I’d fill eight notebooks. / One per tentacle.” An amusing undersea scene dominated by a smiling, orangy octopus fills this double-page spread. Some of the poems are more focused (and less lyrical) than others, such as “Final Edit” with its ending stanzas: “I check once more to guarantee / all is flawless as can be. / Careless errors will discredit / my hard work. / That’s why I edit. / But I don’t like it. / There I said it.” At least the poet tries for a little humor in those final lines.

Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)