In variously rhymed verses as swashbuckling as the figure they celebrate, Lewis tries to flesh out the little that is actually known about the character and career of the most renowned pirate ever. As the poet sticks to the facts, Blackbeard remains a menacing but shadowy figure with a visage “so frightful that it chilled his foes / Straight to the marrowbone.” But Lewis also notes that, until his final fight, there is no evidence that he ever killed anyone, and he evidently lifted the blockade of Charleston, which was his crowning exploit, in exchange for a chest not of loot, but of medical supplies. With notes and captions at the bottom of each balladic entry and illustrations that range from a contemporary portrait to dramatic battle scenes from N.C. Wyeth and other recent artists, this offers an unusual mix of historical roots and rousing rhetoric. Young readers and listeners will fervently agree that, “of all the thieves of the Seven Seas, / No one would ever reach / The height and might / Of the roguish Knight / Of the Black Flag, Edward Teach.” (timeline, afterword, bibliography) (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: May 9, 2006
ISBN: 0-7922-5585-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
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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