A Child's Garden of Weirdness
Illustration, Verse and Worse
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A Child's Garden of Weirdness presents thirty-two zany poems ranging from the outrageous to the bizarre that will delight children of all ages.
Follow Buford the cat from mouse to morgue, grumpy Carlin P. Trump (Oh!...what fate has in store for grumpy children!) along with a cast of crazy sharks, dogs, and kids as they revel in the extraordinary (becoming humongous Q-tips) and the not-so-ordinary experiences of life with mischief and fun.
Illustrated with Tony award-winning actor/artist Dick Gautier's whacky prismacolor genius, A Child's Garden of Weirdness is sure to stimulate a child's imagination and leave you laughing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This puerile collection of verse aims for MAD Magazine -style humor, but for the most part winds up being merely tasteless. Although some of Gautier's subjects (messy rooms, fear of the dark, why dinosaurs are extinct) are benign enough, he often relies on scatological references. This, for instance, from a poem entitled ``Gerald,'' about a boy whose chief source of delight is in disgusting others: ``He used most of his bodily fluids / To do things I cannot mention / Well he didn't feel smart or funny / How else could he get attention?'' And then there's Buford, the overachieving feline who proudly presents his family with several dead rodents, then a dead horse and, finally, a cadaver from the morgue (``No odor thank goodness, however the face was grayish blue''). Many of the poems scan awkwardly (``Marguerite was petite and quite sweet / But boy did she have big feet / It seemed that everyone she met, / wouldn't let her forget / The enormity of her deformity''). Gautier provides similarly unaccomplished caricatures; an actor, he is perhaps best known for his performances in Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie and TV's Get Smart . All ages.
