So Cool

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Dennis Lee has built his reputation as a popular children’s author
with delightful titles like Alligator Pie and Garbage Delight. This new
collection of comical verse is another winner, and begs to be read
aloud.

Many of the new poems are narratives in which the storyline is as
irrepressible as the rhythms and the rhymes. In “Inspector Dogbone
Gets His Man,” a canine police officer ends the romp by catching
himself. To finish the job, he then hauls himself off to the old Toronto
Don Jail, and settles into a cell while proudly reflecting that
Inspector Dogbone got his man!

Children like comical insults, and Lee has a bagful that young readers
may chant aloud, such as “The Pest”: “Your wits are dim, your talk
is trite. / Your are obnoxious in my sight. / ... You are a clod, a
total putz. I loathe your palpitating guts.” Other poems are lyrical,
even philosophical, such as “The Coat”: “I patched my coat with
sunlight. /It lasted for a day... / I patched my coat with darkness;
that coat has kept me warm.”

Maryann Kovalski’s whimsical black-and-white illustrations range from
full-page scenes to small sketches designed to fill irregular spaces
left by the text, but every illustration is a treasure calculated to
generate smiles and giggles. Lee and Kovalski make a great team. Highly
recommended.