My Dog May Be a Genius

Starred review from March 3, 2008
Familiar yet inventive, exuberant and silly, this consistently fresh assortment of light verse and expressive cartoons lives up to the haute goofiness of the best Prelutsky/Stevenson work (The New Kid on the Block
). This collection of more than a hundred poems includes Prelutsky's distinctive mixture of real and fictitious animals, outlandish pets, wistfully subversive students and anti-establishment characters. There are enough verses about burping and homework to satisfy the usual suspects, but they'll also stick around to find their imaginations jump-started. Wordplay and nonsense include the alliterative items on Sandwich Sam's menu (“beetle beet banana blubber, chigger cheese chinchilla chalk”) and the incomparable pun in the poem “Today It's Pouring Pythons,” in which the ballgame is called “anaconda rain.” Humor and whimsy abound, and Stevenson's clever art extends the comedy, but never overshadows the text. He somehow makes elephants look “extremely graceful,/ light and limber on their feet” in “I'm Dancing with My Elephants,” and he can make eccentricity plausible, as when a father and son engage in their traditional July 4 buttering of their noses in “My Family's Unconventional.” Like the words in the poem “Some Chickens,” the pairings in this volume are “pure poultry in motion.” Ages 5-up.

February 1, 2008
Gr 2-5Pre-lutsky has created yet another volume of short poems with guaranteed child appeal. Again he has assembled a zany cast of imaginary creatures and machines, among them the Blue-Bean-Bonking Bubble that bonks unsuspecting passersby; the Snoober that has 11 heads, eyes, tails, wings, songs, and beaks; the Preposterous Wosstrus "that sleeps in the back of your mind," willing to do whatever you command. Familiar animals doing silly things will amuse readers: a pig in a bathing suit that uses "oinkment" for his sunburn; a steel-eating sheep that grows a coat of steel wool; an absentminded elephant that "tries to fly, forgetting/that it hasn't any wings." Creative shape poems are sprinkled throughout: "I Am on a Bumpy Road" features words twisted back and forth across the page; "I Am Climbing Up a Ladder" is arranged into up word steps followed by a quick descent. Predictably, Prelutsky plays with language and does not shy away from challenging vocabulary, as illustrated in "The Underwater Marching Band" that "blares with gusto/and unmitigated cheer, /undaunted by the knowledge/we're impossible to hear." Stevenson's simple signature drawings capture the spirit of each poem with just the right amount of illustration."Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2008
In their fifth collaboration, Prelutsky and Stevenson create another collection of delicious nonsense poetry and gleeful cartoons. Many of the subjects are familiar, from gross-out food (ferret fat in mossy muck) to fart jokes: The Zeenaleens are fond of beans / and often eat a pound. / It isnt very difficult / to tell when theyre around. As always, the poems chronicle a merry alternate world in which the laws of nature dont apply. In one selection, a marching band earnestlyattempts an underwater concert; in another, a ball game is called off after pythons rain from the sky. As always, Stevensons line-and-wash drawings adeptly extend the silly mood in each poem, and Prelutskys rhyming couplets ramp up the meter to capture the galloping excitement of imagined adventures: On Monday at midnight, my griffin and I / rise through the clouds to an ebony sky. Another winning choice for newcomers and fans alike.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2008
This new Prelutsky-Stevenson collection follows the same format as earlier collaborations, but their twenty-plus years of working together seem to have only sharpened their skills: My Dog May Be a Genius is every bit as fresh and fun as 1984's The New Kid on the Block (rev. 11/84). Although many of the over one hundred poems will amuse children as young as age five or six, still more contain sophisticated vocabulary and wordplay that will appeal just as much to fourth and fifth graders. Even the silly verses usually offer a small twist that makes the young reader think twice in order to get the joke: "He thought he saw a crocodile, / but it was just a frog. / He pointed to a hippo / that turned out to be a log. / He spied a pterodactyl / that was nothing but a kite, / then thought he saw a dinosaur -- / We miss him...he was right." Some of the poems nudge children toward a more contemplative mood: "I'm appearing out of nowhere, / I'm beginning to exist. / I had never been an inkling / not a whisper in a mist..." Stevenson's jaunty watercolor-and-ink pictures extend the mood of each poem; together, poet and artist have created a book brimming with wit.

(Copyright 2008 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2008
Prelutsky and Stevenson's years of working together have only sharpened their skills. Although many of the more than one hundred poems will amuse five-year-olds, others contain sophisticated wordplay that will also appeal to fourth and fifth graders. Stevenson's jaunty watercolor and ink pictures extend the mood of each poem; poet and artist have created a book brimming with wit.

(Copyright 2008 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)