The reigning king of iambic “pun”tameter returns with 17 new poems. By compressing words with shared syllables, Prelutsky hybridizes common objects and animals. Kids will delight in meeting “The Eggbeaturkey,” “Shoehornets” and “The Ballpoint Penguins.” The poems, most executed in iambic tetrameter, turn on trademark absurdity: “The TRUMPETOOS and TUBAOONS / Are blaring out discordant tunes. / They play them loud, they play them long, / But most of all, they play them wrong.” Tautly controlling meter and rhyme, Prelutsky brings the roiling fun to a simmer with wry conclusions. (“They march about in close array. / We wish they’d simply march away, / Or stop and take a silent snooze— / Those TUBABOONS and TRUMPETOOS.” Berger’s whimsical collages craftily handle exotica like “The Solitary Spatuloon” and “The Ocelock.” A few poems present challenges. “The Limber Bulboa’s” pun is a stretch for younger gigglers, though redeemed with this surefire couplet: “It has no idea what it’s likely to find / As it lights up its way with its brilliant behind.” Pretty brilliant, indeed. (Poetry. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-054317-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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