Poem-Mobiles: Crazy Car Poems by J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian, illustrated by Jeremy Holmes

This collaboration between two masters of children’s poetry will transport you to new and different places.  Filled with cars that are amazing and wild, the humor-filled poems will delight.  Visit the times of the dinosaurs, underwater driving, cars made of paper or shoes.  Even cars made from bathtubs and bugs.  The poetry flows fast and furious, a perfect pace for young car enthusiasts who may be surprised at how much they enjoy poems.

Lewis and Florian write with a single hand here, the poems flowing naturally from one to the other, the styles of each forming one cohesive whole.  They use humor to great effect both in the titles of the poems and throughout, delighting with puns and word play.  The poems are also very brief, perfect for young readers to enjoy or even memorize.

The art by Holmes plays up the humor in the poems.  His busy active style has lots of motion and zany combinations.  The dinosaur car looks like it could reach right off the page and grab you, the ocean page will have you floating along merrily, and the blueprint style of the contents page sets the tone early.

Perfect poems to share aloud with a class, this one may get lost in poetry collections but marketed correctly should zoom off of library shelves.  Beep beep!

Reviewed from copy received from Random House Children’s Books.