A lively picture book filled with humorous poems by a variety of new poets does what the subtitle suggests—makes the reader (and listener) laugh out loud. With poems that will remind readers of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky, this exuberantly illustrated collection discusses many topics of interest to young children. In “The Human Pickle,” Denise Long amuses with the tale of a young girl called A.K. who loves pickles so much she turned into a pickle. “When her pee turned green / Her folks were unnerved. / She was put in a jar / So that she’d be preserved.” Plays on words and puns add to the fun. In “A New View,” by Jill Esbaum, “Susie dropped her glasses / In the mud beside the brook. / Now everybody Susie meets / Gets a dirty look.” Demarest’s (Bikes for Rent, 2001, etc.) signature ink-and-watercolor illustrations have just the right amount of exuberance and exaggeration to match the poets’ intentions. “Theodore Standitch” is a boy who will eat everything, from “bread and toenail spread” to “A can of Spam, a candied yam.” Demarest draws every single item mentioned in the poem, all stacked up and being dropped into Theodore’s enormous mouth and choppers. Though the book is amended with a few sentences about each of the 24 poems and their creators, only the flap copy mentions that these poems were a result of a contest to “find the best new writers of verse for children.” Little will the child reader care about such adult concerns, though. The deep belly laughs and red-faced embarrassment that come from reading words like “pee” and “belch” will be enough to make this an instant favorite. (Picture book/poetry. 5-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-23567-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
A superlative union of verse and visual art.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet’s tribute to the relationship between goldfinches and thistles finds new life in picture-book form.
In languorously unfolding phrases, Oliver, who died in 2019, notes that the birds wait all summer for the thistle flowers to disseminate their seeds. The finches then use the fluffy, silky pappus—which, attached to the seeds, helps them disperse in the wind—to line their nests, while the seeds themselves feed both parents and young. Sweet ingeniously nestles hand-lettered finch facts into spreads that teem with vibrant color charts keyed to the poem’s imagery. She depicts the poet as a young woman, wandering fields and woods, notebook at hand and trailed by a dog, as a diverse group of birdwatchers look on. Using vintage papers, old maps, and photographed objects including a nest, the artist subdivides her layered compositions into multiple rectangles, inviting close observation and delighted discovery, while reserving plenty of airy space for Oliver’s poem to shine. Sweet’s palette, rich in pinks and yellows, derives from the bright plumage of male goldfinches and the brilliance of flowering thistles, “each bud / a settlement of riches— / a coin of reddish fire.” Oliver concludes: “Is it necessary to say any more? / Have you heard them singing in the wind…? // Have you ever been so happy in your life?”
A superlative union of verse and visual art. (text of poem, Oliver’s handwritten bird list, illustrator’s note, quote from Oliver, sources) (Picture book/poetry. 5-9)Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780593692417
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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