Not a great book for readalouds because of the importance of small images. It would be great for kids who love puzzles and codes. ( )

Rebus Riot is a rhyme book that uses pictures to fill in the missing words of the poem. The illustrations change from page to page, relating directly to the text. Some of the pictures used in place of words have nothing in common with the poem. In other poems the pictures used for words do relate directly to the story. For example, the story “Nosing Around” is about an elephant who loses his trunk. Christensen uses a tree trunk to refer to the missing word, which is an elephants’ trunk. In no way do the poems in this book relate to each other, besides being a rebus poem. Several of the poems use the ABAB form. A poem from this book that I would use with children would be “Fishy Business”. This poem in particular uses mostly pictures to tell the story. By using every third line for words in this rebus rhyme, the poem is more of a puzzle which challenges the brain. ( )

This is a poetry book with rebus poems. Before reading this book, I did not even know what a rebus was. There are fun quirky poems that substitute certain words with picture. It is fun to read and figure out the puzzles. This would be a fun book to read with the class to teach a new form of poetry and for pure entertainment. ( )