One of my favorite picture books of the past few years is Judy Sierra's Wild about Books (illustrated by Marc Brown).
Wild about Books celebrates children's literature by introducing it to the animals at the zoo. As the text begins, "It started the summer of 2002,/When the Springfield librarian, Molly McGrew,/By mistake drove her bookmobile into the zoo." From that moment forward the animals go wild for children's books. My favorite stanza concerns the proper care of books:
"Gently, Molly taught lessons in treating books right,
For the boa constrictor sqeezed Crictor too tight,
Baby bunnies mucked up Goodnight Moon with their paws,
Giant termites devoured The Wizard of Oz,
And bears' love of books was completely outrageous--
They licked all the pictures right off the pages."
The pages that always make me laugh, however, concern the bugs in the insect zoo "scribbling haiku." While the bugs write, a scorpion provides a "stinging review." The most hilarious haiku is the work of the Giant Hissing Cockroach:
Hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss--
Hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss--
Hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss.
To which the scorpion replies "redundant."
Updated! Other Poetry Friday participants this week: other Poetry Friday offerings at Farm School, Book Buds, The Simple and the Ordinary, Chicken Spaghetti, Jen Robinson, Slayground, and Scholar's Blog.
