Oops!

by Alan Katz, Edward Koren (Illustrator)

Overview

Find your funny bone and grab your giggles!

You're about to embark on an adventure through the hilarious landscape created by ALAN KATZ and EDWARD KOREN.

From the kingdom of His Royal Sloppiness (also known as the prince of fingerprints) to the trouble-ridden Pencil-vania, this is a world of hallway hijinks, show-and-smell, clean-freak parents, dentist dilemmas, bothersome brothers, and sinister sisters. If you are a kid, or you know a kid, or if you ever were a kid, this is a poetry collection to cherish (but wipe your hands first!).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416902041
Publisher:	Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date:	03/04/2008
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.75(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Alan Katz has been a print and television comedy writer for more than twenty years. In addition to being a multiple Emmy nominee for his work on The Rosie O’Donnell Show and Disney’s Raw Toonage, he has written for children’s programming on Nickelodeon, ABC Television, Warner Bros. Animation’s Taz-Mania, and many others. Alan is the author of several adult humor books, humorous essays for The New York Times and other publications, and books for young readers. Alan lives in Weston, Connecticut, with his journalist wife, Rose, and their children Simone, Andrew, Nathan, and David. Visit him online at AlanKatzBooks.com.

Edward Koren may be best known for his work in the New Yorker magazine, where he has published nearly one thousand cartoons. He has written and illustrated several children's books, including Very Hairy Harry. He taught at Brown University and received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives with his family in Vermont.

Read an Excerpt

Whoosh!

The wind is blowing

quite a breeze.

The wind is blowing

on my knees.

The wind is blowing

Real-Life Soap Opera

My sister was fascinated

by the underwater scene.

She asked, "When did we get a round TV?"

I said, "You're watching the washing

Don't Look for Him on the Web

Little Miss Muffet

got scared on her tuffet

while eating her curds and her whey.

But little Miss Snider

just sat on the spider

and snarfed on Miss Muffet's buffet.

Foul Bawl

The score was tied.

Dave passed the ball.

I squeezed it with both hands.

I dribbled and then

shot it high.

A great hush filled the stands.

The ball went in!

Man, what a toss!

The whole team blew a gasket!

A perfect shot,

except that it

was our opponent's basket!

Two weeks went by.

Another game.

This time I stole the ball.

My hands were tense.

My chance had come

for glory after all.

I threw it hard.

I threw it fast.

As fast as it could get.

It wasn't blocked!

And yes, it rocketed

right through the net!

The crowd was mad.

The coach got sore

and sent me to my locker.

That throw was great,

he did admit —

but we were playing soccer!

This morning there's another game.

We'll win it in a rout.

It's baseball, and the coach said I

will surely play "left out"!

Text copyright © 2008 by Alan Katz

Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Edward Koren

Editorial Reviews

Like Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein, Katz (Take Me Out of the Bathtub) revels in the kind of schoolyard humor and wordplay relished by his target audience. These 100 light verses contain references to stale gum, troublesome siblings, outwitted parents, dirty underwear, farting in church, belly buttons and enough smelly things to make a fourth-grade boy laugh out loud in the library. Although the meter frequently stumbles, the topics are quirky ("I'm writing a love song to eggs./ They don't have eyes,/ they don't have legs./ They cannot sing,/ they cannot dance. / You cannot keep them / in your pants./ But they're my friends..."). They're often contemporary, too, as in a poem that begins, "I put my brother on eBay,/ but nobody made a bid." Koren (Very Hairy Harry), well known as a New Yorkercartoonist, amplifies the humor with droll b&w drawings in his distinctive, antically cross-hatched style. Perhaps the best section of all is in prose, consisting of 30 free-form "special bonus pages!!" called "Oops!There's More." Here Katz offers some of the funniest jokes in the book along with a mélange of digressions about his grade school career, advice for young writers and a tongue-in-cheek promotion for Uh-Oh, this book's sequel. Ages 7-10. (Mar.)

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Publishers Weekly

Gr 3-6- Katz, who established his place as a writer of humorous children's poetry with Take Me Out of the Bathtub (S & S, 2001), has another winner here. This collection of more than 100 short, funny, rhyming poems never lags. It includes occasional (rather funny) potty humor, such as when the young Shakespeare faces the toilet and pronounces, "To pee or not to pee." Puns and other groaners abound and are sure to delight young readers, especially boys. In the last chapter, Katz offers an offbeat account of how he became a children's poet and includes photocopies of some of his grade-school papers. The tone of this section is conversational, and every bit as entertaining as the poems. Koren's pen-and-ink cartoons resemble the art in Shel Silverstein's collections. The illustrations match the tone of the book and sometimes add extra interpretations of the poems. This is a great choice for reluctant poetry readers and aspiring class clowns.-Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT

School Library Journal

Making a strong bid for the year's most uproarious set of new verse, this collection opens with a "Whoosh!"-"The wind is blowing / quite a breeze. / The wind is blowing / on my knees. / The wind is blowing / its spring dance. / It tells me I / forgot my pants." It closes by rhyming "laugh" with "giraffe," and in between delivers an unrelieved spate of clever knee-slappers on topics from sports to siblings, shopping to passing gas. Koren illustrates each of the 100-plus entries with characteristic crosshatch sketches-mostly of children wearing innocent, glum, annoyed or ingratiating looks, as appropriate. Katz's earlier outings, most of which were illustrated by David Catrow, may have more visual flash, but this one's both larger and more suited to independent readers. Children-never mind adults-will find the urge to read aloud from these pages well nigh irresistible. One more: "I stuffed my lunch / in my race car- / salami and some soda. / It used to be a Chevy, / but it now is a / Toy-odor." (Poetry. 7-11)

Kirkus Reviews