Count Down to Summer

One-hundred and eighty poems, riddles, and rhymes for every day of school. Just a few of the titles I came across, A Billion Years A.D., Gold Teeth, Dead Weight, I was Your Teacher Once, Dolly and Dilly, The Loneliest Creature, Food Fight, Rabbit Math, Riddle, Who Can Tell?, Alphabet Game, Beneath a Shady Tree, The Most Common Vowel … and, the most interesting title I found, Punxsutawney Phil.

Some of the poems rhyme and some do not. Some of the poems are relevant to school topics, and others are just relevant to miscellaneous subjects as #38 Ocean Motion, or #114 Girl and Boy. Number 42 talks about Animals at Odds … snails and whales, pachyderms and worms, newts and bandicoots.

Civil War Couplets, #64, is actually educational, in a couplet sort of way. There are a few of the poems most kids will want to pass over, a few of the riddles they will not give any time to, but within the pages of this book are a few fun rhymes the younger set would enjoy and might want to repeat.

At best, it’s a one-time read and the kids will want to pass it along to another pal, or to another class. At worst it will languish on a bookshelf somewhere before the cover is torn off and returned to the publisher and the book is tossed in a trash can. The illustrations are black ink and very elementary and do not add to the text of the book. Perhaps if the illustrations were more engaging, the poetry and riddles would be more attractive.

BIBLIO: 2009, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Ages 8 to 12, $15.99
REVIEWER: Debby Willett
FORMAT: Poetry Book
ISBN: 978-0-316-04318-2
REVIEWED FOR: Children’s Literature, Online Version, 5/09