A TINY LITTLE DOOR

An illustrated book of children’s poetry, in the spirit of Dr. Seuss.

Dorian is a wordsmith and artist with a passion for creating and illustrating children’s poetry. Imaginative and expressive, Dorian’s work puts a new spin on favorite children’s topics such as getting kids to eat their vegetables, visiting magical places, bugs and making friends. Starting with “Noodle Eater,” Dorian explores how many ways one can eat a child’s favorite food—“I like noodles made with butter / I like noodles tossed with cheese / When I eat them with black pepper / I at once begin to sneeze.” Friends such as Billy Jo Brown (“He lay in a boat parked on the grass”), Jellycake Jane (“Jane serves soup in a teapot, burnt toast on a tray”), Tom Martin MacChase (“As a child Tom could lift ninety pounds in one hand”) and the Muffin Man (“We put blueberry, strawberry, blackberry jam / On our muffins to eat with blue eggs and ham”) are lovable characters, relatable to children and adults. Dorian shines when she uses fantastic words to express everyday actions, emotions or people. Characters such as the llegoswitch, whom you should never visit because, “You’ll be grabbed, and twittered and stuck in a ditch / and tossed 40 feet high in the air,” aren’t frightening. Rather, the play on words conjures up images of a magical, fun-loving animal. But it is to Dorian’s greatest credit that she makes the most dreaded experience for a child the most fun; her poems about food allow children to have no fear to tread into the unknown of new items. “Come along, come on with me to Daredevil’s Hope / I’ll buy all the drinks you can drink / a pineapple-didouble-dipberry-lope / Till you find you can no longer think.” There’s also a chance to try Grasshopper Jam (as well as dragonfly pie and curried ant soup). Dorian brings the reader completely into her world in the books’ titular poem, where she welcomes readers to a magical room that can only be entered by saying the magic word Kaladoosha-mangopipick-eeriedeeriepurd. Brightly colored, textilelike illustrations by the author accompany many of the poems, enriching the reading experience with their childlike exuberance.

If the parents can pronounce the made-up words properly, a fun time will be had by all.