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IN OUR BACKYARD GARDEN

Name: IN OUR BACKYARD GARDEN
Author: Eileen Spinelli
ISBN: 0-689-82666-4

by Eileen Spinelli & illustrated by Marcy Ramsey ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2004

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In a series of free-verse observations, a child tracks a year’s changes in her extended family through episodes in her grandparents’ garden. Along with routine chores, the year brings changes large and small, from a cousin’s pierced new boyfriend (still, promisingly, around the following spring), to an older aunt’s brief, disastrous driving lesson, a new job for Dad, a new baby, and a wedding. Despite holding enough plot for a novel, the poems seem as spacious as the well-tended setting, and Spinelli’s language frequently takes flight. Responding to an ominous forecast on that wedding day, Grandpa “waves the weather-words away. / He tweaks my cheek. ‘Think sun,’ he says. / ‘Think sun.’ / And sun it is the whole sweet day. / The whole sweet day.” Though she’s evidently never seen a crocus, Ramsey offers busy but not overcrowded scenes featuring a multigenerational cast of generally, but not invariably amicable folk, working, playing, or just hanging out together in a succession of seasons. By the end, readers will feel like members of this engaging family. (Poetry. 7-10)

Pub Date: April 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-689-82666-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
WE'RE BETTER TOGETHER
by Eileen Spinelli ; illustrated by Ekaterina Trukhan

- BOOK REVIEW
ONE EARTH
by Eileen Spinelli ; illustrated by Rogério Coelho

- BOOK REVIEW
BIRDIE
by Eileen Spinelli

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POCKET POEMS

edited by Bobbi Katz & illustrated by Marylin Hafner ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2004

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
NOTHING BUT A DOG
by Bobbi Katz and illustrated by Jane Manning

- BOOK REVIEW
MORE POCKET POEMS
by Bobbi Katz & illustrated by Deborah Zemke

- BOOK REVIEW
ONCE AROUND THE SUN
by Bobbi Katz & illustrated by LeUyen Pham

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DINOSAURS GALORE!

by Giles Andreae & illustrated by David Wojtowycz ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2005

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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)