Keep a Poem in Your Pocket: Classic Poems and Playful Parodies

Reviewed by: Margy Soule - Coffin Elementary School, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date:

Review

J. Patrick Lewis, one of the leading children’s poets in America, has selected thirteen poems by famous poets such as Carl Sandburg, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jack Prelutsky, David McCord, and Langston Hughes to parody. Each poem is presented in its original text and then Lewis’ parody is on the opposite page. As explained in his introduction, his goal is “not to try to write better poems than the originals…but to take a well-known poem and echo it by tweaking and twisting to make it new.” This challenge he gave himself seems to be more successful with the light or happy poems. Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Happy Thought” is charmingly parodied with “Sleepy Thought.” Twisting “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Frost into “Stopping by Fridge on a Hungry Evening” takes a much longer leap. The acrylic and ink illustrations by Johanna Wright portray a group of diverse children and add to the book’s light and humorous feel. The parodies would be most appreciated by children who know the original, classic poems and who might want to create their own parodies.

Overall Book Score: good