Creature Carnival
Grade 2-4-A distinguished author and poet combines her sure sense of wordplay with Grimly's command of the eerie and absurd to create an original introduction to 33 fabled beasts. Readers are invited into the carnival-"Our flying horse suggests you duck/Brer Rabbit says,  'Hey, try your luck.'/Then watch Godzilla stomp a truck./It's Creature Carnival time"-and are then introduced to each creature through a clever poem that captures its essence and through wonderfully engaging ink illustrations. Neither the drawings nor the poems seem forced-each one seems exactly suited to its chosen subject. Godzilla's giant foot is accompanied by an ingenious summary of every Godzilla film: "Fateful day,/Atomic ray./Dino mutation, /Terrified nation." The poems will bring appreciative smiles from readers who know the stories-and for those who don't, the book concludes with a glossary. Not since Jack Prelutsky and Arnold Lobel teamed up inNightmares(1976) andThe Headless Horseman Rides Tonight(1980, both Greenwillow) has there been a better collection of poems celebrating the weird.Creature Carnivalis worth any admission price.-Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, MECopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.