Beastly Verse by Joohee Yoon

Selected for the New York Public Library's 2015 List of 100 Best Books for Reading & SharingA Booklist Editor's Choice for 2015Selected for the Society of Illustrators 2015 Original Art ShowA Book Links Magazine Choice for the Top Classroom Picks for 2015

A surprising, humorous, and graphically exquisite presentation of sixteen classic animal poems that spark with fun and cleverness.

Poetry and children belong together, and for a long time, the music and playfulness of verse wove itself through children's days and lives. Beastly Verse aims to help return the wonder of poetry to children's lives through sixteen exquisitely illustrated poems, four of which have the surprise and pleasure of being foldouts. Consisting of playful as well as powerfully memorable poems, Beastly Verse transports the reader into a richly worded world of tigers, hummingbirds, owls, elephants, pelicans, yaks, snails, and even telephones! A playful romp through verse, rhyme, and gorgeous images, this book carries children into the poetic realm in a way that is not only fun and inviting, but inspiring as well! Representing poems from Anonymous, as well as some lesser well-known poets, this volume also includes poems from Lewis Carroll, William Blake, Robert Desnos, Hilaire Belloc, William Cowper, Christina Rossetti, and D.H. Lawrence. Both short and long, these poems can be read and reread, committed to memory and enjoyed all life long.

'A fierce and fresh bestiary.' - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review'The main attraction, of course, is Yoon's stunning, exuberant artwork, and poetry classes would be well served by this superior piece of bookmaking.' - Booklist, Starred Review'...this gorgeous compendium is so stimulating that it's probably best read in the bright light of day.' - Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal'In Beastly Verse (public library), her spectacular picture-book debut...illustrator and printmaker JooHee Yoon brings to vibrant life sixteen beloved poems about nonhuman creatures, real and imagined - masterworks as varied in sentiment and sensibility as Lewis Carroll's playful The Crocodile, D.H. Lawrence's revolutionarily evolutionary homage to the hummingbird, Christina Rossetti's celebration of butterfly metamorphosis, and William Blake's bright-burning ode to the tiger.' - Maria Popova, Brain Pickings'JooHee Yoon's Beastly Verse is very much about its pictures. Three-color illustrations of critters fill up page after intense page, cheerily aggressive, goofy, beastly-friendly. Yoon's poem selection is economical, intelligent, even hip.' - Daisy Fried, The New York Times