A collection of 16 light-hearted poems, each about a bird, insect or animal
Absolutely Wild. Poems by Dennis Webster. Illustrations by Kim Webster Cunningham. Godine, 32 pp., $17.95. Ages 2 and up.
By Janice Harayda
Ogden Nash once delighted Americans with light verse — often about animals — such as, “If called by a panther / Don’t anther.” Something of his spirit lives in the 16 short, rhyming poems in Absolutely Wild.
Dennis Webster isn’t as playful as Nash – he doesn’t use wrenched rhymes like “panther” and “anther.” But he’s written the best collection of original children’s poems about animals I’ve seen since Jack Prelutsky’s Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant. And his daughter has enhanced the book with handsome hand-colored linoleum-block prints framed by decorative borders, some reminiscent of the Ghanaian cloth known as kente.
Each poem in Absolutely Wild has 4–12 lines, a strong rhyme and meter, and a focus on a colorful bird, insect or animal. The 8-line “The Yak” sets the tone:
A shaggy species is the yak
With hairy front and hairy back.
It isn’t very hard to spot him
With hairy top and hairy bottom.
Most poems are odes or odes-in-spirit that marvel at the qualities of a creature in couplet quatrains or another traditional form. In the 8-line “The Ostrich,” Webster celebrates the bird in hymn stanzas, arranged in their usual pattern of alternating lines of four and three iambic feet:
The ostrich is a splendid bird
Who’s taller than most men.
It seems a little bit absurd
To call his wife a hen.
Absolutely Wild also has poems about an ant, snail, moose, shrew, penguin, vulture, gnu, puffin, seagull, giraffe, porcupine, gibbon, platypus and ptarmigan. And it reflects David R. Godine’s attention to craftsmanship in its endpapers and elsewhere. It would make a fine gift for very young children and a good resource for slightly older ones who are learning in school about creatures you won’t usually find in the parking lot at Shop Rite.
Best line: Every child’s favorite is likely to be that “With hairy top and hairy bottom.”
Worst line: “The platypus is quite unique.”
Caveat lector: The second and fourth lines of “The Ostrich” should be indented, but the template for this blog won’t permit it.
Published: October 2008
Furthermore: Kim Webster Cunningham has posted the poem about a snail and the art for it on her Web site.
Children’s book reviews appear on this site on Saturdays.
© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
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One-Minute Book Reviews 
Thank you so much for choosing a children’s poetry book for your review. I’m always on the look out for this type of book. I find them wonderfully soothing to read as bedtime books. Something about the rhythm seems to work wonders for a tired child. Absolutely Wild is definitely going on my Christmas list.
Maureen Hume. http://www.thepizzagang.com
Comment by maureenhume — September 12, 2009 @ 7:19 pm |
You’re very welcome, Maureen. Another nice thing about reading a poetry collection to a child at bedtime is that you may be able to choose how much of it to read more easily with a story you can’t interrupt at a suspenseful point.
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — September 13, 2009 @ 12:09 am |