Overview
Poems framed as epitaphs for extinct prehistoric animals hit the proverbial (coffin) nail on the head in this darkly humorous collection from expert poets Jane Yolen and J. Patrick Lewis. Poems framed as epitaphs for extinct prehistoric animals hit the proverbial (coffin) nail on the head in this darkly humorous collection from expert poets Jane Yolen and J. Patrick Lewis. Macabre, ironic, and witty epitaphs share how prehistoric creatures like the terror bird, the woolly mammoth, and the T-rex met their demise. The ever-entertaining J. Patrick Lewis and the inimitable Jane Yolen offer a collection organized by era, with posthumous poems paired with short secondary text providing additional, factual information about each creature.
Full Product Details
Author: Jane Yolen ,
J. Patrick Lewis ,
Jeffrey Stewart Timmins
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing,U.S.
Imprint: Charlesbridge Publishing,U.S.
Dimensions:
Width: 24.80cm
, Height: 1.00cm
, Length: 27.50cm
Weight: 0.499kg
ISBN: 9781580897068
ISBN 10: 1580897061
Pages: 32
Publication Date: 10 October 2017
Recommended Age: From 7 to 10 years
Audience:
Children/juvenile
,
Children / Juvenile
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Trilobites the Dust, and so do the rest of a cast of extinct creatures in this sequel (prequel?) to Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs (2012). In chronological order from the Paleozoic to the Cenozoic eras, dinosaurs, prehistoric, reptiles, and early mammals offer memento mori in pithy verse. Iguanodon, Alas Long Gone, for example runs: Iguano dawned, / Iguano dined, / Iguano done, / Iguano gone. With similar brevity, Plesiosaur Sticks His Neck Out of Loch Ness and has it chopped through by a Pict (a foot-note admits the anachronism), and unknown agents leave Pterrible Pterosaur Pterminated. In later times, a saber-toohed cat ( Tiger, tiger, hunting bright / near the tar pits, late at night ), a dire wolf, and a woolly mammoth are all depicted trapped in the gooey much. Each poem comes with an explanatory note, and a prose afterword titles A Little About Layers discusses how the fossil record works. Timmins reflects this secondary informational agenda in his illustrations without taking it too seriously - providing a spade-bearded, popeyed paleontologist who resembles a spud in shape and color to usher readers through galleries of fossil remnants or fleshed-out specimens meeting their ends with shocked expressions. The poetry and prose form more of an uneasy detente than an integrated whole, but the comical pictures and the wordplay in these dino demises provide sufficient lift.--Kirkus Reviews
Author Information
Jane Yolen is the award-winning author of more than three hundred children's books including Last Laughs- Animal Epitaphs, Bad Girls (with Heidi E. Y. Stemple), Owl Moon (Penguin), and the How Do Dinosaurs . . . ? series (Scholastic). She currently lives in Western MA. J. Patrick Lewis is the author of more than seventy books for children and served as US Children's Poet Laureate from 2011 through 2013. His books include Last Laughs- Animal Epitaphs, Take Two! (Candlewick), and Poem Mobiles- Crazy Car Poems (Schwartz & Wade Books). He currently lives in Westerville, OH. Jeffrey Stewart Timmins is a children's book illustrator whose books include A Whole Nother Story, Another Whole Nother Story (Bloomsbury), and Play It Loud! The Rebellious History of Music (Capstone). He currently lives in Toronto, ON, Canada.
