Nicholas Tickle Us

Nancy Gray-Didzbalis was editor of the quarterly magazine, Cloth Doll News.

This collection of children’s poems is whimsical and imaginative. Mandlsohn plays upon a child’s everyday, ordinary thoughts and questions and turns them into humorous rhymes and rhythms. The poems need to be read aloud to be fully appreciated. Mandlsohn touches on many aspects of a young child’s wonder. The poem “Susan,” for instance, is about a little girl who always stands on her toes: “...We should not blame her, she’s so small/And so determined to be tall.” The one titled “Postal Problem” is about the size of the letters in relation to the slot in the doors: “…The letters he brings are all so big,/And the slot in the door so small.”

There are lots of other aspects of a child’s development, imagination, creativity, talents, and potential that are examined through Mandlsohn’s poems. Illustrator Peter Kovalik complements the prose with his artwork. His pictures reflect imagination and portray the scenes a child might wish to see as the poems are read.