Many of these 23 poems are new, with a sprinkling from popular contemporaries like Jack Prelutsky, Lilian Moore, and X. J. Kennedy; the point of view is largely British, and what could be more appropriate for St. George's traditional antagonist? Whether the subject is a Doctor De Soto-style vet braving fiery jaws in a flame-proof suit, a ``very tame'' pet dragon that ``only eats a few'' of the children queued up to pat him, or a ghostly green emanation curled up in a castle courtyard, invisible to all but the young narrator, the mood here is light. Paul's illustrations have Tony Ross's wicked ebullience, with witty modern allusions, gruesome details, and the endearingly fierce protagonists limned in fine, energetic lines and artfully added color that recalls Henrik Drescher. A book with uproarious visual appeal, well matched to the comical, rhythmic verse. (Poetry/Picture book. 5-11)
Pub Date: April 9, 1992
ISBN: 0-19-276096-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Tender to tongue-in-cheek, a broad showcase for a versatile writer.
A compact gathering of new verse on diverse topics, from a British poet born in Jamaica.
Within thematic groupings, Bloom writes of children newly born or bored (“Family and Friends”), of erupting volcanoes (“Our World”), of extinct animals (“Animals”), and of dreams (“Unbelievable?”). In the family section, a child muses on her parents, who are apparently at odds: “They say that they’ll always / Love me forever. / I only wish / They could love me together.” Another section, titled “Fun With Forms,” offers samples of an elfje and of skeltonic verse among more familiar constructions—but, alas, there is no explication of these. Though her casual approach to rhyming and metrics does result in some stumbles (“Once I held inside my palms / the curviness of a bow, / and listened in the cornfield / to the sadness of a scarecrow”), the selections offer a range of moods and some choice wordplay to boot, like this from “Praying Mantis”: “Before a meal, what it will say / Is not ‘Bless this food’ but ‘Let us prey’.” The child on the cover and many of the human figures in the illustrations that accompany nearly every poem are people of color. Outside of anthologies, very little of the veteran poet’s work has made it to the States, so count this for most U.S. readers an unjustly tardy introduction.
Tender to tongue-in-cheek, a broad showcase for a versatile writer. (Poetry. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-91307-467-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Otter-Barry
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
The poet’s definitely up on his Star Wars canon, and readers had better be, too, to keep pace.
The author of The Empire Striketh Back (2014) tries his hand at light verse.
For all that he experiments with a villanelle, a shaped poem, and other forms, overall Doescher keeps to a rolling beat as he spins out a hefty 79 poems thick with names, places, and references to events in the films and other media. “G is for Greedo, that green guy’s the worst! / H is for Han (who, with no doubt, shot first).” One poem addresses race directly (“Jeff has Poe-colored skin, / While Joseph’s more like Finn”), and another wishes that, whatever’s going on in a galaxy far, far away, “Star Peace” would come to this one. In rather odd contrast, “If I were a stormtrooper,” writes a child, “I’d practice my aim anytime there’s a break / (So I wouldn’t miss every shot that I make”). Nevertheless, in general the verses’ actual subjects tend toward conventional domestic matters, from the titular bedtime verse, which begins “I wish I had a Wookiee, / To keep the monsters out,” to little Mackenzie Hale, who “would not eat her kale.” Budgen’s ink, wash, and occasionally color scenes of licensed characters or of smiling, racially diverse children, often in costume or with licensed toys, are likewise benign. Like a celebrity tell-all, the collection is capped by an index of, mostly, characters and creatures.
The poet’s definitely up on his Star Wars canon, and readers had better be, too, to keep pace. (Poetry. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59474-962-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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