Dirty Laundry Pile: Poems in Different Voices
These well-chosen verses represent what Janeczko (Very Best  [Almost] Friends) calls "persona or mask poems" each written in  the voice of an object or animal. Bobbi Katz's washing machine  sings its washing songs "Blub-blub-a-dubba" while Patricia  Hubbell's vacuum cleaner complains, "I swallow twigs./ I slurp  dead bugs," and finally threatens, "I think I'll swallow you  today!" Informally organized around various topics, the volume  begins with poems about wind and weather and ends with works  about insects and animals. For the most part, the poems,  including selections by Douglas Florian, Jane Yolen and Karla  Kuskin, are effectively matched by Sweet's (Bat Jamboree)  playful and cartoony watercolors. The light mood of the  illustrations, however, jars with slightly darker poems. In Nina  Nyhart's "Scarecrow Dreams," for example, five crows perch on a  wary scarecrow's shoulder as he describes convincing the farmer  to put away his gun and then feels "a step on my shoulder,/ the  first peck in my eye." Nonetheless, this collection contains  well-crafted poetry that surprises with its deft wordplay and  original points of view. All ages. (June)Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.