Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry
Grade 2-4–Using concrete poetry as the vehicle, Sidman relates a simple story. A small dog escapes from its house and a little cat is abandoned at curbside. These natural enemies meet at a neighborhood park where, forced to wait out a thunderstorm under a picnic table, they take comfort in huddling together and later emerge as buddies. The adjective-loaded unrhymed verse is actually a series of descriptive phrases that have been compressed and arranged to create elements of the artwork. For example, the words large/white steamy/bread loaves rising/in the sun's bright heat/a billowing batch/of cumulus are printed in white and presented in the shape of a cloud, while patchwork, rabbit-nibbled, mower-cropped, wind-whispered grass fills a green border along the bottom of the page. Computer-generated cartoon graphics of the cat, dog, three crows, and other animals are set against a sky-blue background. Some details (the dog's tail and ears; a bird's wings) have gray-toned shadows that indicate movement. Some of the language is creative, and the beat is catchy, but occasionally the crowded monochromatic text is difficult to read, and many of the pages are cluttered with words and graphics. Joan Bransfield Graham'sFlicker Flash(1999) andSplish Splash(1994, both Houghton) and J. Patrick Lewis'sDoodle Dandies(S & S, 1998) are better examples of concrete poetry for the same age group.–Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OHCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.