Have you ever seen an Appleopard or a Crabacus? How about a Boomerangutan? These are just a few of the creatures featured in Jack Prelutsky's latest side-splitting anthology of more than 100 poems.
Jackie Urbanovic's pen-and-ink illustrations match the imagination of the poet. The Applelopards that dangle from a tree simultaneously appear to be "delicious" and also "beastly to the core." The Crabacus, on the other hand, "keep[s] careful count/ Of every single grain of sand,/ Recording the amount" on an abacus built into its chest, according to its portrait. The crabacus is not to be confused with the snake that can do arithmetic: "She can't subtract, which makes her sad,/ And two things make her sadder.../ She can't divide or multiply--/ My snake is just an adder."
Prelutsky presents an array of forms and rhyme schemes, including haiku for a half dozen common creatures, such as an Oyster ("I'm clearly no gem,/ But in my interior/ I'm growing a pearl"), a tongue twister for "Two sea horses... on an undersea seesaw," and the occasional limerick. A few especially memorable poems involve a child that Urbanovic pictures as sucking his thumb and carrying a Teddy bear, who runs away from home ("My little plan soon met defeat--/ Besides not having much to eat,/ I'm not allowed to cross the street"). Dinosaur fans will glom onto "Tyrannosaurus and his bride [who]/ Terrified the countryside./ Then they fell and broke their necks--/ Poor Tyrannosaurus wrecks!" Read these aloud for maximum effect. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness