Channeling Hieronymus Bosch, but with a smile, newcomer Berger services her collection of urbane nonsense verse with cut-paper collages featuring cone-nosed, stick-limbed creatures, most resembling insects in wildly variegated garb, all strewn across the pages with postmodern abandon. In variously curved and snaky lines, she invites readers to venues as diverse as “Josie’s Cabaret,” where “One hundred ants / In lime green pants / Are feeling so trés trés,” and “Zeppelins . . . flown by spotted ladybugs / and errant dragonflies.” She introduces “Rodeo Rosy,” “Foxy Fox,” and other colorful characters, chronicles an abruptly terminated friendship between Wiley Croc and Goldie Fish, and brings the journey to a close with a soothing lyric addressed to “Lullaby moon.” Reminiscent of Calef Brown’s daffy outings, but less forced, this debut should inspire plenty of chuckles from fans of all that is oddball. (Poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8118-3773-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
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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