Poem Depot: Aisles of Smiles

by Douglas Florian

Overview

In the vein of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky, this illustrated book of humorous poems will guarantee giggles

Artist, poet, and award-winning author Douglas Florian successfully captures the comedy of kids’ everyday lives with this jam-packed volume of 170 nonsense poems. Meander through the different aisles—such as “Jests & Jives” or “Tons of Puns”—to find everything from laugh-out-loud limericks to frenetic free verse. With Florian’s eccentric wit and off-the-wall drawings, this one-stop funny poetry shop is perfect for fans of Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101620502
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/20/2014
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Douglas Florian (douglasflorian.com) is an abstract artist, poet, and the author/illustrator of over 50 children's books. He's visited more than 500 schools throughout the United Statest. He lives and works in New York City.

Table of Contents

Aisle 1 Wit & Whimsy 1

Aisle 2 Chortles & Chuckles 14

Aisle 3 Funny Bones & Belly Laughs 28

Aisle 4 Giggles & Glee & Tons of Teehee 42

Aisle 5 Willy-Nilly Sillies 56

Aisle 6 Tons of Puns 70

Aisle 7 Jesus & Jives 84

Aisle 8 Rib-Ticklers & Sidesplitters 96

Aisle 9 Jokes & Pokes & Funny folks 110

Aisle 10 Hee-Haws & Great Guffaws 124

Aisle 11 Miles of Smiles 138

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for Poem Depot:

"Plenty of laughs to be had."—Publishers Weekly

"More than one reviewer has already noted that fans of Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends or A Light in the Attic might also enjoy Douglas Florian’s Poem Depot: Aisles of Smiles."—Julie Danielson (of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast) in Kirkus Reviews

"With a strong thread of wordplay, the poems will amuse children while also challenging them to think, making this an appealing source of short verse to memorize and an enjoyable collection of poetry to read just for fun."—Booklist

"The verse here ranges from screwball nursery rhymes to free verse, limericks and even a Ben Franklin aphorism...it's not Chaucer, but it's diverting."—The Wall Street Journal

"Echoes of Shel Silverstein’s brand of wit and whimsy reverberate in Florian’s 170 poems. The kid-friendly selections creatively capture the quotidian comings and goings of youngsters in humorous, forward-thinking verse."—School Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

11/11/2013
Ludicrous dilemmas, oddball situations, and quirky twists of fate feature heavily in Florian’s poems, which are accompanied by his thickly scrawled b&w drawings (not all seen by PW). Instead of chapters, Florian groups his verse into the “aisles” of the eponymous store, and as the first entry explains, this collection is all about silliness and fun: “There’s laughs galore/ Inside this store/ And fun that runs for miles.” The categories are somewhat arbitrary (the poems in “Tons of Puns” use few of them, for instance), but there are still plenty of laughs to be had as Florian puts a clever spin on some traditional nursery rhymes (“Old Mother Hubbard/ Went to the cupboard/ To fetch her poor dog a bone./ But when she got there/ The cupboard was bare./ She ordered Chinese on the phone”), deploys an array of limericks and jokes-in-verse, and introduces a bevy of strange creatures: “What does a/ Baga Baga/ Dinga Donga do?/ I’m not sure, but/ There’s one behind you!” Ages 9–11. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Poem Depot:

"Plenty of laughs to be had."—Publishers Weekly

"More than one reviewer has already noted that fans of Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends or A Light in the Attic might also enjoy Douglas Florian’s Poem Depot: Aisles of Smiles."—Julie Danielson (of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast) in Kirkus Reviews

"With a strong thread of wordplay, the poems will amuse children while also challenging them to think, making this an appealing source of short verse to memorize and an enjoyable collection of poetry to read just for fun."—Booklist

"The verse here ranges from screwball nursery rhymes to free verse, limericks and even a Ben Franklin aphorism...it's not Chaucer, but it's diverting."—The Wall Street Journal

"Echoes of Shel Silverstein’s brand of wit and whimsy reverberate in Florian’s 170 poems. The kid-friendly selections creatively capture the quotidian comings and goings of youngsters in humorous, forward-thinking verse."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

02/01/2014
Gr 2–5—Echoes of Shel Silverstein's brand of wit and whimsy reverberate in Florian's 170 poems. The kid-friendly selections creatively capture the quotidian comings and goings of youngsters in humorous, forward-thinking verse. Thick ink illustrations add to the look and feel of a coloring book while a simple font enhances the readability of literary comestibles sure to delight and please while augmenting developing language skills. Chapter headings include "Chortles & Chuckles," "Funny Bones & Belly Laughs," "Jests & Jives," and "Tons of Puns." The poems are brief in length and long on fun. The first selection, "Welcome," says it all: "Welcome to the Poem Depot-/Relax and stay a while./When you walk in/You'll surely grin,/And leave wearing a smile."—Magdaline Henderson-Diman, formerly at Bass Harbor Memorial Library, Bernard, ME

School Library Journal

2013-12-07
Gifted poet and illustrator Florian (Poem Runs: Baseball Poems, 2012, etc.) here presents a chunky collection of drawings and brief poems on a host of silly subjects. Posited as a superstore of verse on assorted topics children care about--school, family, animals, food and the like--one also can't help thinking this "depot" represents a midway point for a number of poems that haven't quite reached their creative destinations. To be truly effective, light or nonsensical verse should be as tight in its poetic construction as it is loosely suggestive in metaphorical associations, and a number of the works assembled here simply read as not fully cooked. The volume's more successful poems tend to employ wordplay to elicit a chuckle or illustrate delightfully nonsensical truisms about language, as in "Insect Asides": "A dragonfly is not a fly. / It's not a dragon either. / No butter on a butterfly, / And bees cannot spell neither." Likewise, when paired well, Florian's free-form pen-and-ink drawings enhance the whimsical nature of the fanciful scenes depicted. In "Pets," a creepy drawing of a girl with hairy spiders crawling all over her face offers a convincing explanation for the accompanying poem's punch line: "Bruce has ten pet roosters. / Ben has ten pet hens. / Fran has ten tarantulas, / But not too many friends." Overall, a thick collection of humorous verse that might have been funnier with thinner ambitions. (Poetry. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews