Noisy Poems for a Busy Day

PreS-Gr 3–Heidbreder knows his audience and how to prompt a gush of giggles and tickles from young children. Just five terse lines distill a moment of a young child’s day, from waking up, getting out of bed, to watching clouds, those “Puffy stuffies,/dragon drifters,/dueling dogs–/sky shape-shifters” to getting into bed at day’s end. There’s plenty of onomatopoeia at its silliest: “Slip-slap-lick” is the first line of “Doggie Hi,” and  “Into PJs” begins, “Giggle-wiggle./Jump-in jiggle.” In support of early literacy, the poems offer a sequenced narrative as well as their own “noise” that children can perform and memorize: “Giggle-wiggle./Jump-in jiggle./PJs backward–/twisty–twiggle.” Cartoon, mixed-media depictions of each moment add humor and appeal. The children seem to float with their bubblelike, very round, cheery heads and simplified bodies. There’s a lightness and ease to the drawings and plenty of white space with an eye to negative space and design. This is a well-conceived and executed book that would pair nicely with Loris Lesynski’s Zigzag: Zoems for Zindergarten (Annick, 2004).–Teresa Pfeifer, Alfred Zanetti Montessori Magnet School, Springfield, MA