Hypnotize a Tiger, by Calef Brown (ages 5-12)

I love sharing poetry that makes kids laugh, especially with puns and twists of phrases that make kids giggle. Even better, in my view, is poetry that makes kids think and laugh and then make their own puns. Calef Brown's new collection is full of delightful surprises, perfect for the punster in your life.

Hypnotize a Tiger
Poems About Just About Everything
by Calef Brown
Henry Holt / Macmillan, 2015
Your local library
Amazon
ages 5-12
*best new book*

Calef Brown’s witty verse and illustrations leap and frolic from one topic to the next, full of wordplay, humor and rhymes. Whether he's riffing off of his "peeps" like Lazyhead "eating frozen raisin bread" while staring at the TV, or sharing "poems of a particular vehicular nature", Brown is at his best when he combines short witty verse with pen and ink drawings.

Rhyming word play is delightful and footnotes add to the humor, encouraging careful reading. Here's one of my favorites:

Lou Gnome

Look who came back home
to Hoboken--
it's Lou Gnome!
Like the G in his name,
Lou is silent.
Completely nonviolent.
He doesn't speak,
even when spoken to.
None of the Gnomes in Hoboken do.

footnote:
Those that are gnome-schooled
are required to recite the Pledge of the Wee-Gents,
sometimes at huge events.

Irreverent? Certainly! But for kids who think that using a G in the word gnome is completely nuts, this poems makes absolute sense. I also love all the ways that Brown plays with language, not only using obvious end-rhymes like home and gnome, but also substituting beginning sounds to imply rhymes in your head (don't you love gnome-schooled?!).

My students and I keep finding treasures to make us laugh. In "Roman Pets", Brown declares that "They even found a dog brush/ in a catacomb." Get it? Cat-a-comb? Dog-brush?!! The footnote reads: "A puppy at play/ on the Appian Way/ was happy to say/ he was not in Pompeii."

Many reviewers have called Brown's poems "nonsense verse", but I have to declare that they make the upmost sense! Just take a look at how he combines pigeons and frogs into "Pigeon Frogs":

"Pigeon Frogs!
Pigeon Frogs! ...
All day long
they hop and flutter.
Snatching crumbs
and catching flies
with bobbing heads
and bulging eyes."

If you were to combine the qualities of a pigeon and a frog, wouldn't you say you'd find "bobbing heads and bulging eyes"?!! I can't wait to use this poem with our 3rd graders and ask them to work together to make their own creative animals.

Illustrations ©2015 by Calef Brown; used with permission from Macmillan. The review copy was kindly sent by the publisher, Macmillan. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books. Thank you for your support.

©2015 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books