Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 3^-5, younger for reading aloud. For this volume, which has the same large-size, heavily illustrated format as the popular Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom (1997), Prelutsky has selected more 200 poems for children by 137 poets spanning the twentieth century. Although a few of the poets are English, almost all are contemporary and American, and almost all of the poems were originally published for children. On each double-page spread there are four to six poems on a theme--food, school, reading, pets, sibling rivalry, the seasons, nonsense, etc.--lavishly illustrated with Meilo So's energetic watercolors. The pictures are gorgeous, but as in Beauty of the Beast, the crowded pages sometimes barely leave room for the words, or for imagining what the words suggest. Still, the gift-book design does encourage browsing. Teachers and librarians will want to use this millennial volume with Prelutsky's Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983) to introduce our best children's poets and encourage children to write about their immediate experience. --Hazel Rochman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
For this companion to The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury, Prelutsky combed more than 4000 poetry volumes to select 211 poems by 137 poets. His sampling includes established poets like Langston Hughes, Shel Silverstein and e.e. cummings, but, to Prelutsky's credit, not necessarily their best-known works. The overriding mood is rollickingly upbeat, uncharacteristic for a form renowned for its adeptness at expressing moments of grief or loneliness. Hats off to So (The Beauty of the Beast, with Prelutsky), who visually holds the anthology together. Her people are engagingly limber, her animals unmatched: for instance, she evokes the fitful movements of a squirrel with a few calligraphic strokes, and her wet-on-wet technique suggests the fluffy texture of a kitten's fur or the speed of leaping salmon. In one spread, she ingeniously accommodates eight bug poemsÄfrom poets as diverse as Ogden Nash and Valerie Worth; the poems themselves appear to flit about a central image of two children nearly hidden in a field of wildflowers. She connects four stand-alone poems in another spread ("A Hippopotamusn't" by J. Patrick Lewis and "The Click Clacker Machine" by Donna Lugg Pape are two of them) with a unified palette of pinks and lavenders. Its unvarying tone notwithstanding, this eye-catching collection is likely to lure both future fans of verse and poetry devotees. All ages. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Gr 1-6-This volume, described in Prelutsky's introduction as representative of the "scope and variety of children's verse produced in the twentieth century," contains 211 poems by 137 poets. Some are well known, such as Shel Silverstein, Karla Kuskin, and Prelutsky himself. Some have written mainly for adults, e.g., John Updike, Langston Hughes, and e. e. cummings. Lesser-known and more recently published poets, such as Janet Wong, Deborah Chandra, and Nikki Grimes, are included as well. The greatest number are from the United States. While all of these selections have been published elsewhere, the format and illustrations in this collection give them new life. Poems are presented in unlabeled small groups that cross each double-page spread. Some of these groupings are clearly understood from their content, such as those on the seasons or on insects. Others require readers to think about common threads or themes as they read and study the illustrations, such as the cluster of poems on ways of creating. In another grouping, Prelutsky pairs poems of bats and mice with a poem about creatures who see better at night, calling attention to their shared physical characteristics. So's watercolor illustrations are, by turn, impressionistic, childlike, silly, and serious, as called for by the tone of the poems featured. Sometimes the artist creates one unifying illustration across the spread, such as a cityscape at night that features all types of light found in the group of poems presented there. A splendid collection.-Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
While less comprehensive than the title suggests, the volume does contain more than 200 poems by 137 mostly contemporary, and mostly American, poets. Each double-page spread bursts with poems focused loosely on a theme--seasons, animals, school, and food among them--as well as lively watercolors delineated with brief, calligraphic brush strokes. Busy but beautiful, this collection is an enticing one. From HORN BOOK Spring 2000, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
