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Dear Book Lovers, Welcome! I am delighted that you have found The Through the Looking Glass blog. For over twenty years I reviewed children's literature titles for my online journal, which came out six times a year. Every book review written for that publication can be found on the Through the Looking Glass website (the link is below). I am now moving in a different direction, though the columns that I write are still book-centric. Instead of writing reviews, I'm offering you columns on topics that have been inspired by wonderful books that I have read. I tell you about the books in question, and describe how they have have impacted me. This may sound peculiar to some of you, but the books that I tend to choose are ones that resonate with me on some level. Therefore, when I read the last page and close the covers, I am not quite the same person that I was when first I started reading the book. The shift in my perspective might be miniscule, but it is still there. The books I am looking are both about adult and children's titles. Some of the children's titles will appeal to adults, while others will not. Some of the adult titles will appeal to younger readers, particularly those who are eager to expand their horizons.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Poetry Friday - A review of My Hippo has the Hiccups and other Poems I totally made up

Some poems are thought-provoking and they make you pause and ponder. Others create pictures in your mind that you savor. Then there are the poems that are funny. They make you laugh, and remind you that life is full of silly situations. Today's poetry title is full of poems that will make you chuckle and that young children will greatly enjoy.

Kenn Nesbitt
Illustrated by Ethan Long
Poetry with Audio CD
For ages 5 to 9
Sourcebooks, 2009, 978-1-4022-1809-5
   If you are thinking about getting a hippo from the local pet shop, make sure that you find out all there is to know about the hippo. If you don’t, you might end up with a hippo that has the hiccups and whose “hiccups shake the ground.”
   This is just one of the funny and often bizarre things that you will read about in this collection of poems written by Kenn Nesbitt. You will meet a child who thinks his father is a vampire because Dad only goes out at night and he sleeps all day long. It never occurs to the child that his father might be working the “graveyard shift.”
   Children who have parents who are always telling them to do this, and to do that, will really appreciate the poem called My parents are making me crazy. The child in the poem is convinced that his parents’ demands that he do his chores and homework are going to make him “mental,” and that he is “losing my marbles.”
   In another poem we meet a child who has figured out how to get around having to clean his room. He has trained his cat to do the job for him. The cat dusts and sweeps, he puts clothes away, and makes the bed. Despite the fact that his cat is such a huge help, the child is not happy because in exchange for all this work “I clean out his little box.”
   This book contains more than one hundred poems that children will find amusing and entertaining. Simple line drawings accompany many of the poems, and there is also an audio CD that children can listen to. On the CD, Kenn Nesbitt reads more than forty of the poems in the book. His narrative is spirited, and young listeners will find it hard to keep a straight face as they listen.

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