Common Sense Media Review
Witty words with whimsical illustrations.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 4+?
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Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
Twenty-one extraordinary poems about twenty-one extraordinary creatures! Witty words are whimsically accompanied by childlike illustrations of original mammals: an oddly shaped tapir, a sneaker-wearing rhebok, a bactrian camel donning a dapper hat. The spiraling word format reinforces the energy of the language.
Is It Any Good?
Douglas Florian's paintings -- done on primed brown paper bags -- energize the mammals, and his words cleverly describe their idiosyncrasies. The hippo who "eats and eats and eats and eats" has a table and a place setting inside his mouth. With the text "Madagascar leaping lemurs breeze through trees without breaking femurs," three gleeful primates fly off branches as crutches float around them.
For one 5-year-old reader, MAMMALIBILIA was a good introduction to animals he hadn't heard of before, and the silly verses encouraged him to remember some of the animals' characteristics, such as the lynx's sought-after coat and the tapir's hefty head. Florian presents wonderful examples of how cool words can be.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the fun rhymes. Which lines and poems do you enjoy most? Parents can help children identify different elements in the structure of the poems and encourage kids to write their own animal-inspired poetry.
Book Details
- Author :
- Illustrator : Douglas Florian
- Genre : Poetry
- Book type : Non-Fiction
- Publisher : Harcourt Brace
- Publication date : January 1, 2000
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 4 - 7
- Number of pages : 48
- Last updated : July 12, 2017
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