October 1, 2024
K-Gr 2-Comprised of 60 poems gathered from Hoberman's decades-long body of work, as well as eight new poems, this collection celebrates the acclaimed poet's lifelong love of animals and bugs. While a few selections feel a bit dated, overall the poetry is lighthearted and full of lively wordplay. It is Frazee's clever illustrations, however, that really steal the spotlight. The art places the bugs and animals at a retro, mid-century hotel with a zebra concierge and a staff of squirrels. Rendered in black pencil and watercolor, the artwork simultaneously complements each poem and engages observant readers in amusing subplots set in various locales in and around the hotel. For example, alongside the poem "So Many Kinds of Animals," Frazee depicts a host of hotel guests in a yoga class; on the next page, a poem about a donkey is paired with an illustration of the underappreciated animal toting a bundle of yoga mats on its back. VERDICT A playful addition to larger poetry collections.-Lauren Strohecker
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Starred review from January 1, 2025
The late Hoberman's eclectic, posthumously published collection of high-spirited rhymes, riddles, and limericks focuses on the animal kingdom. Hoberman selected her favorite bestiary poems from over six decades (some long out of print), then wrote an additional eight more for this stirring collaborative compendium with Frazee. Frazee introduces the concept of an animal hotel, and every entry slots so neatly into this form that readers will honestly believe the poems were written especially for this book. What was once a haphazard conglomeration of disparate poems becomes, with these pictures, almost a story about an assortment of quirky hotel guests. As one might expect, the poems vary in quality but have occasional flashes of brilliance, as with the poem "Dragonfly" ("You get what you eat with your feet when you hunt / While you fly which is why your six feet are up front"). Many of Hoberman's poems adeptly incorporate scientific facts--for instance, a daddy longlegs can regrow its limbs, while ants follow one another based on scent trails. At times, the art provides a delightfully ironic contrast: "Lion" describes a threatening "Mighty beast," while Frazee depicts the big cat getting a dye job at the hairdresser's. A labor of love, both a fitting tribute to its poet creator and a grand reimagining, thanks to incredible artistic skills.(Poetry. 4-10)
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January 1, 2025
Preschool-Grade 3 An accomplished children's book writer and poet for over 60 years, Hoberman first worked with illustrator Frazee on the picture book The Seven Silly Eaters. For the current verse collection, Hoberman, who died in 2023, chose her favorites among her animal-themed poems that were originally published in books that are now out of print, in addition to writing eight new poems specifically for this volume. The book's gracious introduction includes reflections on her approach to writing poetry as well as advice to children on how to make a beloved poem your own, so that ""you will have it for the rest of your life."" Among the new poems is ""Horse,"" a brief but challenging tongue twister that is particularly fun to read aloud: "A horse that whinnies all the time / Will very soon be hoarse; / And though he'd like to neigh all day, / A hoarse horse can't, of course." Frazee's lively illustrations, created with pencil and watercolors, capture the tone of the verse and amplify its humor for young children.
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