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Chicken Scratches: Chicken Rhymes and Poultry Poetry by Lynn Brunelle, Scott Menchin, George Shannon
xterminal's review
3.0
Lynn Brunelle and George Shannon, Chicken Scratches: Poultry Poetry and Rooster Rhymes (Chronicle Books, 2010)
Chicken-related silliness for the preschool set that is, for the most part, good stuff. Every once in a while, the poetry derails itself something fierce:
“We chickens are a time trip,
we're visions from the past—
we're living, breathing relatives
of creatures long, long past.”
(“Time Traveler”)
(Good if you're teaching repetition, but not so at all if you're teaching poetry; there are few things more annoying to a poet's ear than the laziness of using repetition in place of rhyme.)
...but if you're willing to pick and choose what you relate to the kids you'll be reading this to, there's some fun stuff here, some of which is just scurrilous enough to appeal to the rowdier elements in kids' natures, and some of which is straight-up educational. Pick it up from the library and give it a look before deciding whether you want to add it to your permanent collection. ***
Chicken-related silliness for the preschool set that is, for the most part, good stuff. Every once in a while, the poetry derails itself something fierce:
“We chickens are a time trip,
we're visions from the past—
we're living, breathing relatives
of creatures long, long past.”
(“Time Traveler”)
(Good if you're teaching repetition, but not so at all if you're teaching poetry; there are few things more annoying to a poet's ear than the laziness of using repetition in place of rhyme.)
...but if you're willing to pick and choose what you relate to the kids you'll be reading this to, there's some fun stuff here, some of which is just scurrilous enough to appeal to the rowdier elements in kids' natures, and some of which is straight-up educational. Pick it up from the library and give it a look before deciding whether you want to add it to your permanent collection. ***
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