Baaaad Animals

Sylvia Pantaleo is an associate professor of education at the University
of Victoria. She is the co-author of Learning with Literature in the
Canadian Elementary Classroom.

The double-page frontispiece of this picture book foreshadows the
humorous nature of the poems in this collection. Indeed, the visual joke
with the sheep continues on the copyright and title pages, another
single frontispiece, and the final pages of the volume. The table of
contents, with its unique title of “What’s Happenin’ Here?”
provides the titles and page numbers of the 32 poems. The selections
vary in rhyming scheme, complexity, and length (from 4 to 24 lines).

The common element of the poems is the misbehaviour or problematic
“actions” of various creatures, such as sheep that engage in various
types of criminal activities, a clumsy Tyrannosaurus Rex, a shark with
halitosis, a dancing millipede, a nudist grizzly bear, a seahorse that
is jealous of its siblings, a cow that does not want to be milked, and a
skunk that has lost its stink. Most of the poems are written from the
creature’s perspective. Each poem is complemented by comical black-ink
drawings. The layout of the text and the artwork in the book offer
further variety. The language is rhythmical and the nonsensical poems
are entertaining. Recommended.