What If? - Hardcover

The very first poem sets the tone for this cheery collection of 29 poems about animals: "The world is so full of astonishing things: / Spider spun silk, butterfly wings, / . . . / How come? And what if? / And suppose this were so? / It's exciting to wonder about what we know." Hulme asks children to consider, for example, "how can gophers see where food is found," or "how come a lizard looks so slim" if he has "layers of clothes on him." She ponders why a tiny flea "can cause the BIGGEST itch of all" and why a giraffe can't laugh. An inchworm (shown sporting a fedora) "measures wherever he goes" and a cricket (in ruffled knickers) sings "by fiddling his wings." Decidedly uneven in craft, the poems sometimes shift rhythms, sometimes force rhymes, but nonetheless please with apt language and unexpected turns. The old toad, for example, "sits like a lumpy gray stone / . . ./ Till quick as a zip / With a lickety flick / Of his stickety tongue / he snatches a snack / And sucks it back." Gorbachev, an emigre from Ukraine with more than 40 books to his credit, scores high marks for his Lobel-like watercolors that capitalize on Hulme's humor and whimsy. Ages 4-6.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.