Poem Stew (Poems selected by William Cole: Images by Karen Weinhaus) NY: Harper Collins: 1981

Poem Books: Middle 84 PG

Summary: This book has many poems about food. Some are about gross food, others are about manners with food and some are about delicious meals.

Critique: Poems were mostly easy to read. A couple were wordy without any rhythm making them difficult to read.

Activity (After): Write a poem about your favorite food.

Who could hate poetry about food? This collection, or stew, of silly poems is completed with short and hilarious poems. I liked the ones that rhymed better, and it reads similar to Silverstein's work. Along with silly enjoyment, it teaches life lessons on table manners. The illustrations go well with each poem and the sketchiness of each one works well. ( )

This book is a poem book where full of different little poem from different authors and it's be very funny and unpleasant. I like the book where there a lot of rhythm of funny joke about foods and animals because it can make you laugh and gross-out about some of them. I would use it for my teaching if I need to lift up my classroom atmosphere and when there a need of laughter. I think it suitable for grade 6 or up due to some of the pronunciation of the words.

As a fellow foodie, I can appreciate this book. Name a food and William Cole most likely selected a poem about it. All of the selected poems were short and they also rhymed. These poems are hilarious. Some of them are similes comparing food to animals, some are about gaining weight from food, some of the poems are simple explanations as to why they like that particular food and others are just explaining different types of food. While I was skimming through this book I noticed that the most entertaining poems were the ones that rhymed the most often. I think this is because it takes an author so much creativity and thinking to come up with the next line that often times authors create silly new words. Although this book is comical and entertaining, it does serve some educational purposes. Throughout this book we learn lessons about table manners, the importance of healthy meals, cooking lessons, family and readers get to learn about a variety of different types of food. This book has a similar style to some of Shel Silverstein's books. Although these poems are by all different authors, they all go together very coherently because of the illustrations. ( )

This is a cute book full of poems for kids.