Janeczko (A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems, p. 411, etc.) advocates using poetry in the classroom daily, and teachers who are introducing the concept of point of view will find some unique ways to get the point across through these poems. The poets represented here can hear anthropomorphic voices in some pretty odd places: curtains, a snowflake, a crayon, and the source of the title—a pile of dirty laundry. Other poems give voice to animals, trees, kites, the winter wind, and three machines that relate to the dirty laundry: a washing machine, a broom, and a vacuum cleaner. Well-known poets such as Karla Kuskin, Lilian Moore, Jane Yolen, Douglas Florian, and Bobbi Katz are represented, along with less familiar poets. Sweet’s watercolor illustrations help bring each poem to life with dancing brooms, a menacing vacuum cleaner, and a poignant horse waiting for a blanket and a carrot. Younger children will enjoy the poems simply as funny or touching poetry, but older students will begin to see the poetic possibilities in the unexplored voices of the inanimate. Janeczko has a wide following through his own poetry collections, anthologies, and books on writing poetry, so this collection should find a ready audience, especially in school libraries. (Poetry. 7-11)
Pub Date: June 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16251-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2001
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
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two.
Rollicking verses on “numerous” topics.
Returning to the theme of her Mathematickles! (2003), illustrated by Steven Salerno, Franco gathers mostly new ruminations with references to numbers or arithmetical operations. “Do numerals get out of sorts? / Do fractions get along? / Do equal signs complain and gripe / when kids get problems wrong?” Along with universal complaints, such as why 16 dirty socks go into a washing machine but only 12 clean ones come out or why there are “three months of summer / but nine months of school!" (“It must have been grown-ups / who made up / that rule!”), the poet offers a series of numerical palindromes, a phone number guessing game, a two-voice poem for performative sorts, and, to round off the set, a cozy catalog of countable routines: “It’s knowing when night falls / and darkens my bedroom, / my pup sleeps just two feet from me. / That watching the stars flicker / in the velvety sky / is my glimpse of infinity!” Tey takes each entry and runs with it, adding comically surreal scenes of appropriately frantic or settled mood, generally featuring a diverse group of children joined by grotesques that look like refugees from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two. (Poetry/mathematical picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0116-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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