cover image If You Were a Chocolate Mustache

If You Were a Chocolate Mustache

J. Patrick Lewis, illus. by Matthew Cordell. Boyds Mills/Wordsong, $18.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-59078-927-8

In offbeat poems that include haikus, limericks, riddles, and wordplay of every kind, current children’s poet laureate Lewis offers quirky contemplations, silly vignettes, and improbable events. Rather than rely on a single theme, Lewis smoothly jumps between out-of-left-field ideas: a dragon serves as a clothes dryer, Bigfoot laments that he can’t find stylish shoes in his size, and an old turtle complains to the sky that there is “nothing new under the sun,” only to have his claim challenged by a snowflake. The result: loosely integrated poems that can easily stand on their own. Cordell’s pen-and-ink cartoons have an improvisational energy that complements Lewis’s off-kilter verse. Ages 8–up. (Oct.)