Best Friends Forever! Animal Lovers in Rhyme

In this companion to Beastly Feasts! and Let’s Have a Bite! Forbes composes odes to unlikely lovestruck animals. A seagull finds love inland (“Now they’re raising a brood in the pines—/ Not one of Mother Nature’s predictable designs:/ A seagull in the forest with a morning [sic] dove./ But it pays to take a chance on love”), while Monty “is a naughty python/ Who met his wife in a python pile-on.” The loquacious verse sometimes falters (“The first time I met Lena/ She was an average girl hyena/ Who could laugh right on cue/ Because that’s what hyenas do./ The Animal Cliché League is pretty strict:/ Hyenas must laugh, so goes the edict”), but, by and large, the gently mischievous poems should please those who love wordplay, the animal kingdom, and improbable romances. All ages. (Jan.)