The Prince of Palindromia offers a third collection, nearly all of which, he writes, “grew (very slowly) out of my brain.” Every palindrome appears as either the punchline or caption to a page-sized pen-and-ink cartoon that provides explanatory visual cues: “Red? No wonder,” thinks Ms. Claus, watching Santa paint a wall. With examples both humble (A clueless math student answers “One?” “No!” replies his teacher) and complex—“A man, a plan, a cat, a bar, a cap, a mall, a ball, a map, a car, a bat, a canal: Panama”—Agee hikes down a curious, always entertaining language byway with a book which, it can be said with perfect justice, readers will enjoy backwards and forwards. (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: April 16, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-31808-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
As she lovingly details the comfortable disarray of a perfectly splendid staircase, a small mouse counts off the stairs in a game she has clearly played many times. The rhyme skips and leaps from “First step. Rain step,” because that’s where her puddle boots are, to the third step, where the window seat is, to the sixth, where she can peer into her own bedroom, to the eleventh where the night light lives, and the twelfth where she can go back down and start again. She’s accompanied by her little sister and readers catch a glimpse at the end of a mother, father, and baby, too. The details are whimsical, and the rhyme infectious. A real treat, perfectly centered on a small child’s perceptions and experience. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-886910-34-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
In this visual feast from Lesser and Regan (Dig Hole, Soft Mole, 1996), so striking are the oil and gouache wildlife portraits that, despite the counting book framework, numbers are nearly an afterthought. Every spread has a you-are-there quality, as if readers are peering into a rock-strewn stream to spy six fire salamanders or scuba diving alongside one leopard ray in the murky blue. The book opens with an invitation—“Spotted creatures/wait for you. Snoop and find them/count them, too”—as Lesser toys with language, using active verbs to describe the kinds of spots found on each animal: “Staring, rippling, jetting spots” dapple five reef squid; “loping, gazing, nibbling spots” grace seven reticulated giraffes. Although spots are the unifying theme, the creatures have been carefully selected not only for their markings but for their habitats or biomes, identified and outlined in a final glossary. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-200666-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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