Pocketful of Stars

Ted McGee is an associate professor of English specializing in
children’s literature at St. Jerome’s College, University of
Waterloo.

As Felicity Williams notes in her preface, the primary audience of this
book consists of babies and toddlers. The poems provide not only verbal
fun, but physical exercise; each poem comes with a suggestion of actions
to go with the words. For the parent using the verses to play lap games,
the challenge is to remember the new lines. Emphatic sound
effects—onomatopoeia, end rhyme, predictable repetitions, and
incantatory rhythms—make one’s memory work easier. So does the
technological updating of well-known verses: in Pocketful of Rhymes this
little piggy goes not to market, but to outer space. Should memory still
fail, the softcover booklet can easily be set open.

Visually, the book should appeal to somewhat older children too. The
layout of words and lines imitates the sense, a feature of the graphic
design aimed at new readers. The subjects of some pictures—power
pylons, an automatic car wash, walking in mud, or baking with
it—require a range of recognizable experiences that babies do not
have. As in many of Michael Martchenko’s other picture books, his
illustrations ignore background so that his cartoon characters and their
intense emotions can remain front and centre. And the pictures add comic
touches not evident in the poems. There is lots of fun here for
children, both those in the lap and those out of the lap and able to
read for themselves. Recommended.