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Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! |
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| Author: |
Dr. Seuss |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0679890084 |
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Book Review
With the release of Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! readers young and old are afforded a dazzling glimpse into the genius of Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel. The book is based on 14 rough drawings and verses Geisel's secretary gave to the author's editor, Janet Schulman, after his death in 1991. In these scribbled sketches and scratched-out lines, we witness the Seussian process in building a story. When brainstorming the name of what resulted in the Diffendoofer School, he jots down several possible names--"William Wilkins Woofer Junior," "Woodrow Watkins Woofer," "Zoofendorf Elementary," "J. Ebeneezer Bomberg Jr."--all of a slightly different cadence and rhythm, which he tests like a composer writing a new concerto. A small collection of Geisel's rough sketches would be plenty... |
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Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young |
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| Author: |
Jim Trelease |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0394872185 |
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Book Review
Poems about picnics, pretending, and puppies make this book the book to introduce little ones to poetry about the world around them. Jack Prelutsky, one of today's most respected children's poets, has selected more than 200 short poems--old favorites, traditional rhymes, and humorous verses--that will delight young listeners. The poems cover a wide range of experiences in a young child's life, from everyday events to special days to the world of the imagination. Marc Brown, author and illustrator of the popular Arthur series, uses colored-pencil illustrations and borders to unify the poems, helping to create a pleasing, lively collection to carry children from their preschool years into the early elementary grades. As Jim Trelease tells us in his introduction to the book, "Unlike the toys we buy our children, poems... |
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It's Raining Pigs and Noodles |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0060763906 |
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Book Review
Brace yourself for more pun-ishment from the playful Jack Prelutsky and illustrator James Stevenson, creators of The New Kid on the Block, Something Big Has Been Here, and A Pizza the Size of the Sun. More than 100 Prelutsky poems populate the pages--a mix of 8-year-old-boy humor, nonsense poetry in the tradition of Ogden Nash and Edward Lear, and clever, often unabashedly shameless, wordplay. While there are many, many doozies, our favorite is "Hiccup!," excerpted here: I've tried gulping hiccup water,
stood upon my hiccup head,
held my breath until my hiccup
hiccup face turned hiccup red. Chronic cogitators are celebrated in "Quibble Q. Quing" (who thinks about things), and wild imaginations in "Purple Orangutans:" ("Rabbits and parrots play tag in the stars, / marshmallows march... |
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Read a Rhyme, Write a Rhyme |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky (Editor) |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0375822860 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 2-4–Prelutsky designed this collection to jumpstart children's creative juices. Three short poems were chosen for each theme: dogs, food, birthdays, bugs, cows, friends, snow, turtles, rain, and self. He also includes a poemstart: an unfinished verse, along with advice and lists of rhyming words, so that readers can complete the poem on their own. The compiler displays a fine sense for lighthearted, kid-friendly poetry; highlights include Alice Schertle's Moo, Myra Cohn Livingston's Birthday, and Karla Kuskin's Running Away. Readers will be drawn to the book's attractive design; So's watercolor-and-ink illustrations add playfully jumbled perspectives. This title is aimed at a younger audience than most poetry/creative writing guides; Janet S. Wong's You Have to Write (S & S, 2002) is for... |
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Something Big Has Been Here |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0688064345 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Review
In this delightful companion to Jack Prelutsky's The New Kid on the Block, an early worm frightens the early bird, four vain and ancient tortoises race to see who can get to the finish line last, and outrageous imaginary characters such as the "Know-Nothing Neebies" ("We're perfectly pompous, / indelibly dense, / we haven't a trace / of a semblance of sense") pop up as magically as any creature from The Phantom Tollbooth or The Wizard of Oz ever did. In "Captain Conniption," young readers will giggle to meet the self-professed "scourge of the sea." "I'm Captain Conniption, / and up to no good, / you'll soon walk the plank / if I think that you should, / I'd show you right now / how I vanquish a foe, / but I hear my mother, / so I have to go." Other... |
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The Random House Book of Poetry for Children: A Treasury of 572 Poems for Today's Child |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0394850106 |
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Book Review
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children was recognized upon its publication in 1983 as an invaluable collection--a modern classic--and it has not since been surpassed. Five hundred poems, selected by poet and anthologist Jack Prelutsky, are divided into broad subject areas such as nature, seasons, living things, children, and home. The poems of Emily Dickinson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks populate the book's pages, while Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Shel Silverstein ensure that the collection delights even the most reluctant readers of rhyme. Playground chants, anonymous rhymes, scary poems, silly verse, and even some sad strains are carefully indexed by title, author, first line, and subject. With illustrations of cheerful,... |
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20th Century Children's Poetry Treasury |
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| Author: |
Selected by Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0679893148 |
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Book Review
"I objurgate the centipede,/ A bug we do not really need," writes Ogden Nash. Carl Sandburg hums and strums, while pages later, William Jay Smith compares a toaster to a silver-scaled dragon. And of course A.A. Milne must add his two cents' worth, "tiddely pom, tiddely pom." What a labor of love! Children's poet and anthologist Jack Prelutsky has collected 211 of his favorite poems by 137 poets, representing the best of verse from each decade of the 20th century. "Until this century, most children's poetry was either syrupy sweet or overblown and didactic, and tended to talk down to its readers," Prelutsky writes in his introduction. "Contemporary children's poets have thrown all that condescension and moralizing out the window, and write with today's real child in mind." What's in this anthology for today's child? Food... |
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It's Valentine's Day |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
068814652X |
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-- School Library Journal
"Hallelujah!"
-- Publishers Weekly
"Cheers for prelutsky, ingenious rhymester beloved by children who recognize themselves in collections like this."
See all Editorial Reviews
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For Laughing Out Loud |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0394821440 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 24 hours. |
From Publishers Weekly
Prelutsky introduces this volume of humorous poems with a verse of his own: "If you have got a funnybone, / and I've no doubt you do, / then this completely silly book / is sure to tickle you." The poems are silly, full of high jinksstet spelling per Web. and clever nonsense. Although the author and title indexes at the end of the book are useful, a table of contents would have clarified the book's loose organization. A verse about Bella's new umbrella is followed by one about ghouls' ghoul-oshes. Poems about nuts, noodles and bananas fill one double-page spread while verses about rattlesnake meat, jellyfish stew and eating eels occupy another. Priceman's ( Friend or Frog ; Rachel Fister's Blister ) slapdash watercolor illustrations are full of energy and high spirits, perfectly suited to this eclectic collection... |
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Pizza the Size of the Sun |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0688132359 |
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From Publishers Weekly
Poetry's bad boys are back again, teaming up to take another swipe at stuffiness. Prelutsky's predilection for playfulness percolates throughout this collection of slyly subversive rhymes, and he couldn't ask for a better partner in crime than Stevenson, whose droll, minimalist sketches so enlivened the duo's previous escapades (The New Kid on the Block; Something BIG Has Been Here). Once again Prelutsky demonstrates a robust appreciation of the absurd?and an uncanny knack for turning every possible subject on its head. Here his verse ranges from the short and sweet ("My mother makes me chicken,/ her chicken makes me cough./ I wish that when she made it,/ she took the feathers off") to poems of Jabberwockian silliness (the entry that begins " 'I'm ceiling fad!' a money boned./ 'Alas!' a carrot pride" is just one... |
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The New Kid on the Block |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0688022715 |
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Book Review
This exuberant valise of verse bulges with more than 100 poems about things you've never thought about, such as Underwater Wibbles who dine exclusively on cheese, and things you probably have thought about, such as sneezing oysters and the dot-gobbling Flotz. Jack Prelutsky, one of the premier children's poets of our time, manages to be deadpan and goofy simultaneously and in perfect rhythm right up to the pleasantly unpredictable punch lines of his poems. Take "Jellyfish Stew." "You're soggy, you're smelly, / you taste like shampoo, / you bog down my belly / with oodles of goo, / yet I would glue noodles / and prunes to my shoe, / for one oozy spoonful / of jellyfish stew." Poems about greedy grannies, exploding Bloders, and hypothetical situations such as having your nose unfortunately situated... |
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Awful Ogre's Awful Day |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0060774592 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Review
How awful is this green-haired, one-eyed ogre? So awful his name is Awful Ogre. Fortunately, he takes some time out of his awfully busy ogre schedule to describe his routine, poem by poem, from the moment his pet rattlesnake awakens him to a touching bedtime scene--as rhythmic and tender as Goodnight Moon, but with scorpions and cacti. As it turns out, the ogre has many delightful hobbies, from dancing ("I dance with abandon, / Bravura, and zest, / I carom off boulders / And beat on my chest") to singing "stirring ogre melodies" to bone collecting to boasting to watching TV. He is particularly proud of his centuries-old garden: Because of my ramshackle patches
Where scrofulous weeds rule unchecked,
I've earned from the trolls and the goblins
A measure of grudging respect.
Jack... |
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Frogs Wore Red Suspenders |
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| Author: |
Jack Prelutsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
006073776X |
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Book Review
Playful poet Jack Prelutsky and the beloved Petra Mathers (Lottie's New Beach Towel) take youngsters from the heart of South Dakota to Monterey Bay in this extraordinary collection of poems and paintings that belongs on the shelf next to Ride a Purple Pelican and Beneath a Blue Umbrella. As ever, Prelutsky's meter is flawless, and you absolutely read his poems aloud, even if you're sitting in a room by yourself. This is not the gross-out fare that Prelutsky so delightfully dishes out in Awful Ogre's Awful Day and some of his other books. Here are 28 nonsensical, often somewhat geographical poems for preschoolers and early readers about a tiny baker who bakes a tiny cookie, a granny who lost her footing and fell into pudding, elephants who sit in trees and sneeze, and a small hen who is stuck at the bottom of the... |
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