  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 07/01/2017 Gr 3–8—Those who claim to hate poetry will enjoy this riotous compilation just as much as those who love the form. Fans of Ogden Nash, Shel Silverstein, and Jack Prelutsky will rejoice in finding another member of their gang. Wordplay abounds: "If ever I find myself holding a gecko…/I'll lecko." Typography is the source of gags, as when the letters "d" and "b" face off for a duel, turn to shoot each other, and fall over dead, having become the letters "p" and "q." And the title poem will have kids howling with laughter as the narrator repeatedly misses the most obvious rhymes: "I'm just no good at rhyming./It makes me feel so bad./I'm just no good at rhyming,/And that's why I am blue." Smith matches Harris's wit with his own zaniness, merging line drawings with printing techniques that add a variety of texture and mood. The interplay between text and illustration provides further delights. VERDICT A surefire winner for reading aloud or for snickering with under the covers. Every library will want to add this to its poetry collection.—Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Booklist - 09/01/2017 *Starred Review* “Children are gooder and grown-ups are badder / At just about all things that matter,” Harris declares in “Grown-Ups Are Better (I),” the first in a series of three poems of the same title. In this magnificently wacky romp through verse (rhymed and unrhymed, whispered and shouted, upside down and sometimes invisible), television producer Harris and two-time Caldecott honoree Smith prove just that, evoking childlike wonder with paeans to dragons, trick riddles, and raucous lullabies, helped along by Smith’s inimitable dappled digital-media and watercolor designs. There are moments of sheer hilarity. “Eight” recounts the fate of a boy whose parents “forgot to teach him” the cardinal number—an oversight that disrupts the entire book’s pagination. In “I Don’t Like My Illustrator,” Harris ridicules Smith, only to be gravely rebuked on the facing page. Classics aren’t safe either. “Two Roads” concludes with a condemnation of Frost (“Thanks for nothing!”), and “Jack Sprat (Updated)” ends not with a clean platter, but death. But it isn’t all unipedes (a one-legged centipede, of course) and ginormous hippos; the revelry is tempered by earnest wisdom, too, including insights for the introverted, the downtrodden, and the hopelessly mischievous. In the closing poem, Harris beckons, “Let’s meet right here in twenty-five years.” While this moving, madcap anthem to language is sure to stand the test of time, readers will be revisiting it far sooner than that. - Copyright 2017 Booklist. Loading...
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