Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #267627 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780152163877
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5–A semi-swell collection of 16 poems celebrating books, reading, language, and libraries. Subjects range from Otto the Flea (who writes, of course, his "Ottobiography") to "The Big-Word Girl" (who takes her Webster's to the movies) to "Great, Good, Bad" books ("A bad book owes to many trees/A forest of apologies"). The brief selections encompass various forms, from an eight-word acrostic to haiku to rhyming quatrains and couplets. The tone is generally light, with the last few entries turning more to wonder and metaphor ("A good book is a kind/Of person with a mind/Of her own..."). Usually printed one per spread, the poems are accompanied by richly dark artwork. The thickly applied acrylic paint and mixed-media illustrations are sometimes reminiscent of the work of David Shannon, with a comically grotesque air, and add comprehension to the verses. The Lewis hallmarks are all here–clever wordplay, humor, nonsense, rhyme–though the collection doesn't have quite the spot-on snap of his best stuff. Kids will enjoy the switcheroos of "What If Books Had Different Names?" ("Alice in...Underland?/Furious George...") and the faintly macabre title poem, but others, which reach a bit for even a nonsensical point, will have less appeal. Lee Bennett Hopkins's Good Books, Good Times! (HarperCollins, 1990) and Wonderful Words (S & S, 2004), which include offerings on the same subject from many fine authors, would partner in a nice balance with Lewis's frothier nonsense.– Nancy Palmer, The Little School, Bellevue, WA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. This homage to reading salutes all the essential elements: letters, words, books. Lewis' poetry is continually clever, whether pithily summing up children's classics (a book that is excitedly read by a kid of 6 to another kid of 63) or capturing the thrill of reading in the dark. There are laughs in a poem called "What If Books Had Different Names?" that posits such titles as Goodnight Noon and Green Eggs and Spam as well as slightly more serious thoughts in the title poem. Despite the picture-book format, it will take children older than the preschool crowd to appreciate the wordplay, which on occasion is quite sophisticated (Lewis credits Lear, Carroll, and X. J Kennedy as his inspirations). The acrylic and mixed-media artwork (see cover, this issue) adds whimsy to the words. Case in point, a bibbed lamb eating the Dr. Seuss special. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Grade 2-5–A semi-swell collection of 16 poems celebrating books, reading, language, and libraries. Subjects range from Otto the Flea (who writes, of course, his "Ottobiography") to "The Big-Word Girl" (who takes her Webster's to the movies) to "Great, Good, Bad" books ("A bad book owes to many trees/A forest of apologies"). The brief selections encompass various forms, from an eight-word acrostic to haiku to rhyming quatrains and couplets. The tone is generally light, with the last few entries turning more to wonder and metaphor ("A good book is a kind/Of person with a mind/Of her own..."). Usually printed one per spread, the poems are accompanied by richly dark artwork. The thickly applied acrylic paint and mixed-media illustrations are sometimes reminiscent of the work of David Shannon, with a comically grotesque air, and add comprehension to the verses. The Lewis hallmarks are all here–clever wordplay, humor, nonsense, rhyme–though the collection doesn't have quite the spot-on snap of his best stuff. Kids will enjoy the switcheroos of "What If Books Had Different Names?" ("Alice in...Underland?/Furious George...") and the faintly macabre title poem, but others, which reach a bit for even a nonsensical point, will have less appeal. Lee Bennett Hopkins's Good Books, Good Times! (HarperCollins, 1990) and Wonderful Words (S & S, 2004), which include offerings on the same subject from many fine authors, would partner in a nice balance with Lewis's frothier nonsense.– Nancy Palmer, The Little School, Bellevue, WA (School Library Journal )

Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. This homage to reading salutes all the essential elements: letters, words, books. Lewis' poetry is continually clever, whether pithily summing up children's classics (a book that is excitedly read by a kid of 6 to another kid of 63) or capturing the thrill of reading in the dark. There are laughs in a poem called "What If Books Had Different Names?" that posits such titles as Goodnight Noon and Green Eggs and Spam as well as slightly more serious thoughts in the title poem. Despite the picture-book format, it will take children older than the preschool crowd to appreciate the wordplay, which on occasion is quite sophisticated (Lewis credits Lear, Carroll, and X. J Kennedy as his inspirations). The acrylic and mixed-media artwork (see cover, this issue) adds whimsy to the words. Case in point, a bibbed lamb eating the Dr. Seuss special. Ilene Cooper (Booklist - Ilene Cooper )

Customer Reviews

Whimsical little poems with exquisite illustrations
I love books, and I also work in a library, so I really had no choice but to see what this book was about when I came across its intriguing title. There is no murder or mayhem in these pages, of course, because Please Bury Me in the Library is very much a children's book - one aimed mostly at fairly young children. This is the kind of a book a parent would read to a young child as the future reader delights in the excellent artwork. Each picture accompanies a poem by J. Patrick Lewis, who throws in an interesting mix of poetic styles: haiku, free verse, rhyming verse, even an acrostic salute to libraries. I wasn't all that impressed by some of the poems, but this is largely due to the fact that they are aimed primarily at fairly young children (and I haven't been fairly young in a good many years now) - these are simple little verses that come across much better when read aloud. I'm sure many children would really enjoy them. It's really the artwork that makes this book special, though. Kyle M. Stone's artwork is both whimsical and a little dark - not scary, of course, but dark in a "Tim Burton was here" sort of way. As an adult, I feel sure that looking at these illustrations is about as close as I can ever come to once again seeing the world through a child's eyes - and that, in my opinion, makes this book a visual treat for young and old alike.

Excellent prose but illustrations make this book
There is something in Kyle Stone's style that takes one aback at first. It is like looking at a picture you might've drawn once, when you were a child, or dreamed about drawing anyway, before you put your crayon to the paper and finished yet another square house with smoke coming from the chimney.
Stone's illustrations are like that; they come directly, seemingly unvarnished, from the mind of a child, and like the best of childhood they are wild and not altogether safe and just a little bit magical. The fact that Stone could find that place within himself and recover these images is a worthy feat. That he could then execute on these images with such perfect technique is remarkable. There is mastery here; not perhaps fully realized, but certainly in development.
J. Patrick Lewis must be delighted. With Stone's illustrations his words take on a depth and resonance he could hardly have imagined possible.
But in the end it comes down to the children, and after all a child will know instantly if you've got it right. If the children of my acquaintance are any indication, this is a special book. My highest recommendation.

Must-have for your classroom!
With regard to Please Bury Me in the Library, the consensus among the teachers here at the Oasis is: This is one of our top ten all-time-favorite books. After reading it, each of us immediately went to the bookstore to buy a copy for her or his classroom.

What is so wonderful, you ask? Everything! The poems are gems, full of witty word-play and humor and an occasional serious moment.

As you might imagine from the title, the poems are about books and reading and words. In "The Big-Word Girl" we meet Elaine who "could not unglue her eyes/ From Webster's Dictionary" (even though she is sits at a horror show-Godzilla Meets Tooth Fairy-with a green monster at her side).

In "Flea-ting Fame" we meet Otto the flea, a "fly-by-night," who is writing by firefly light his "Ottobiography."

Although this is a picture book, it offers something for word lovers of all ages. In "Three Haiku," for example, we read:

Epitaph for a
Devoted Lifelong Reader-
Thank you for the plot

and

Late at night, reading
Frankenstein . . . and suddenly
a pain in the neck.

Kyle M. Stone was the perfect choice as illustrator. The acrylic paintings and mixed media illustrations are as clever and beguiling as the poems they accompany. "What if Books Had Different Names," for example, sits next to a painting of an endearing thin bodied, lobster-bibbed lamb waiting to tuck into a plate of green eggs and spam.

Classroom Uses: Suitable for read-alouds, independent reading, and even middle school classrooms. You may access a teacher's guide from the publisher here.

We took the book into an eighth-grade language arts classroom where it was extremely popular. The students were especially enamored with the illustrations. After reading the poem "Necessary Gardens" (an acrostic spelling out the word "Language'), we had the students write an acrostic about their favorite person, place, or thing and then illustrate their poem.

Highly recommended. Suitable for district-wide purchase.