Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking

by Alan Katz, Edward Koren (Illustrator)

Overview

Laugh out loud on this hilarious journey through the kooky creations of Alan Katz and Edward Koren. From the giggle-until-it-hurts author that brought you the Silly Dilly series, this collection of side-splitting verse will have readers slapping their knees and rolling in the aisles. Whether you’re staying out of trouble or constantly causing it, these rowdy rhymes turn our wacky world upside-down to reveal the pitfalls of hopeless homework, tricky travels, sibling shenanigans, and everything in between.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416935186
Publisher:	Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date:	10/25/2011
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Alan Katz has been a print and television comedy writer for more than twenty years. In addition to being a multiple Emmy nominee for his work on The Rosie O’Donnell Show and Disney’s Raw Toonage, he has written for children’s programming on Nickelodeon, ABC Television, Warner Bros. Animation’s Taz-Mania, and many others. Alan is the author of several adult humor books, humorous essays for The New York Times and other publications, and books for young readers. Alan lives in Weston, Connecticut, with his journalist wife, Rose, and their children Simone, Andrew, Nathan, and David. Visit him online at AlanKatzBooks.com.

Edward Koren may be best known for his work in the New Yorker magazine, where he has published nearly one thousand cartoons. He has written and illustrated several children's books, including Very Hairy Harry. He taught at Brown University and received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives with his family in Vermont.

Editorial Reviews

Accompanied by Koren's impish, characteristically furry caricatures, Katz's comedic poems take aim at familiar experiences like family squabbling and avoiding homework, while offering child-centric observations about the world. In one, the speaker laments a sibling's painful violin playing: "She screeches and she scratches,/ and I know she's really trying./ Not sure if this is Clair de Lune,/ or outside, a cat's dying." Kids will revel in the gently wicked jokes ("Do not click!/ And do not clunk!/ I'm onomatopoeiaing") and mild gross-out gags ("Dad has a big nose./ Mom has a big nose..../ Mom or Dad's nose?/ I wouldn't pick either") that run throughout the collection. Ages 7–10. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Accompanied by Koren's impish, characteristically furry caricatures, Katz's comedic poems take aim at familiar experiences like family squabbling and avoiding homework, while offering child-centric observations about the world."
—Publishers Weekly, July 2011

"I laughed out loud when I read the poems in this book, as did my students! B&W line drawings add to the humor and make the poems appealing to older students. Quite a few of the poems include mild bathroom humor, just the right type to appeal to upper elementary and middle school students."
—Library Media Connection, Jan/Feb 2012, Recommended

"As they did in Oops!, Katz and Koren once again craft a giggle-inducing collection of 100 humorous poems. . . . This collection should prove popular with readers who’ve enjoyed the work of Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, and Douglas Florian."
—School Library Journal, November 2011

"The succinct verses derive humor from puns, family dynamics, and bathroom humor as well as a generous sprinkling of general silliness. This is solid ground for amusing grade-school poetry, as demonstrated by the likes of Jack Prelutsky and Douglas Florian."
—BCCB, December 2011

From the Publisher

Gr 3–5—As they did in Oops! (S & S, 2008), Katz and Koren once again craft a giggle-inducing collection of 100 humorous poems. Koren's cross-hatched cartoons feature long-nosed, wild-haired figures that match the playful goings-on in poems like "Fridge-a-Dare," "It Embarrasses Me, A Latte," and "Using My Noodle." Many selections feature wordplay, as in "Come for a Spell," which gets mileage from the difficulties in spelling Cincinnati, or "Not-So-Special K," with its plea to drop the silent "k." Many play on bodily functions, such as "Pleasant Dreams, Unpleasant Streams": "When I change the baby,/I stand there and I pray/that he lets me do it quickly/and he doesn't start to spray." This collection should prove popular with readers who've enjoyed the work of Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, and Douglas Florian.—Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA

School Library Journal

Katz and Koren follow up Oops! (2008) with another set of 100 or so rhymed (usually) knee-slappers paired to scribbly ink drawings. So brisk and varied is the mix of wordplay ("I don't like the ampersand. / You can't hold it in your h&"), family humor and short meditations on food preferences, procrastination, peculiar traits of sibs, why there's only one in a "pair" of underwear and like topics that it's hard to stop reading-or reading aloud, for that matter. It's all as child-friendly as can be, and the versifier's casual tone finds echoes in the illustrator's crosshatched sketches of figures showing a range of expressions while glancing bashfully or distractedly off to the side. As clever and funny as the poetry of Jack Prelutsky in his prime and less edgy than Shel Silverstein's, this deserves and should have no trouble drawing chuckles and belly laughs from a wide audience, even outside the confines of National Poetry Month. (Poetry. 7-11)

Kirkus Reviews