A collection of 18 poems seeks to encapsulate the school experience. With dry humor, David L. Harrison’s “Show-and-Tell” describes what happens when Billy brings his snake to school; Kenn Nesbitt’s soggy child sees wicked opportunity in a malfunctioning “Drinking Fountain”; Carol Diggory Shields captures, in clipped, breathless verse, the excitement of a “B-Ball” game. Other topics run the gamut from test anxiety to gross lunch food to recess to the challenge of cursive writing. Manning’s spiky, slyly subversive watercolors give this collection a welcome edge, for, despite the overall solid quality of the selections, this is hardly a new concept—look at any back-to-school display to see its predecessors. Moreover, the final poem—a plaint about homework—which may excite sympathy, ends this volume on an oddly negative note. One to miss. (Picture book/poetry. 5-9)
