cover image For Laughing Out Loud: Poems to Tickle Your Funnybone

For Laughing Out Loud: Poems to Tickle Your Funnybone

Jack Prelutsky. Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, $19.95 (96pp) ISBN 978-0-394-82144-3

Prelutsky introduces this volume of humorous poems with a verse of his own: ``If you have got a funnybone, / and I've no doubt you do, / then this completely silly book / is sure to tickle you.'' The poems are silly, full of high jinksstet spelling per Web. and clever nonsense. Although the author and title indexes at the end of the book are useful, a table of contents would have clarified the book's loose organization. A verse about Bella's new umbrella is followed by one about ghouls' ghoul-oshes. Poems about nuts, noodles and bananas fill one double-page spread while verses about rattlesnake meat, jellyfish stew and eating eels occupy another. Priceman's ( Friend or Frog ; Rachel Fister's Blister ) slapdash watercolor illustrations are full of energy and high spirits, perfectly suited to this eclectic collection that includes work by such favorites as Nash, Lobel, Kennedy, Kuskin, Yolen and Raskin. Ages 7-12. (Apr.)