No More Poems! A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse

In poem "Brotherly Love," parent tells daughter all the ways she shouldn't kill her brother: Don't push him out the window, drown him in the bathtub, smother him with a pillow, pour gasoline on him and set him on fire, tie him to an active railroad track, feed him poison, or drop him down a well. Then parent suggests alternative ways to be mean: Maybe give his bike flat tires or shove him into swimming pool. The illustration shows girl with her brother behind her, bound and gagged and tied to their toy train track. In poem about bullying dad/coach who yells at his son from the sidelines, the son throws a pitch at his dad's head -- but it's a curveball, so it lands in the dirt.

In a poem about an older man who can't remember a kid's name, the man says, "No flippin' way." In a poem in which a boy talks about his rivalry with his twin brother, he ends almost every verse with "He's dumb."

Parents need to know that No More Poems! A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse is by Rhett Miller, frontman of the alt-country band Old 97's, and is illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat. It's funny and irreverent and has fun, cartoon-like art that includes some edgy images, like a baseball coach angrily yelling at his son on the team and a boy peeing in the bathroom in the middle of the night (showing the yellow stream going in the toilet). And for a poem in which a parent tells a little girl all the ways she shouldn't kill her brother (don't push him out the window, don't drown him, don't take a pillow and smother him, don't pour gasoline on him and set set him on fire, etc.), there's a picture of a boy tied up on the railroad tracks of a toy train set. The poem is clearly intended to be funny, but joking about killing/hurting your sibling -- and the accompanying image -- could upset parents and/or kids.