Prelutsky combines animals and inanimate objects to create silly new animals. Love the collage illustrations. I plan to figure out a way to make my own Clocktopus for the library... ( )

Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, written by Jack Prelutsky and Illustrated by Carin Berger. Here the author and illustrator blend poetry, humor, animals, and imagery. Each poem introduces a new character by combining an animal with an object in a creative way and the illustrator uses mixed media and collage to bring these creations to life. For example, the author combines a toaster and a toad to create “The Pop-up Toadsters”. Another favorite was “The Clocktopus” where an octopus and clock merged together. Through the Prelustsky’s use of puns and rhymes combined with Berger’s creative illustrations the reader’s imagination and joy is abound.

These poems would be a great addition to any poetry unit and a great resource in teaching poetry writing with students. It could be used as a guide having students create their own poetry by creating a character from an animal and object. There is a nonfiction/research element to understanding the animal and the object well enough to know a creative way blend them together. This book can also just be a source of enjoyment through poetry for students. These poems would be appealing to both children and adults and a great addition to any library.

This is a book full of poetry and verse. Each poem is very unique, because it takes an animal and combines it with an object and creates a unique creature. This is a great book to introduce poetry and verse to kids and it is really fun to read. ( )

The poems are used to give objects animal like features. Also, the poets uses description to help us understand what each of the objects functions are. ( )

In my opinion this poetry book was awesome! This author does a wonderful job with incorporating comedy, imaginary animals, and relevant themes in this books in order to gain his readers attention. One of my favorite poems within this book was the "Toadster". Most of his poems have to do with his imaginary animal combined with an inanimate object. For instance, this poem combines a toad and a toaster and examples the frustrating idea of always hopping around trying to toast bread. Another highlight that I like about this book is the illustrations matching the extremely detailed poems that Prelutsky writes. It takes a lot of effort to match the complex and crazy imaginary animals that Prelutsky comes up with and Berger does a wonderful job fulfilling that. I would definitely recommend this poetry book to be in the classroom library in my classroom. ( )