The Asphalt Octopus: A Child's World in Poetry

Helen M. Dobie was a teacher-librarian living in Woodstock, Ontario.

Lola Sneyd is a very experienced writer of poems for children. Her work has been published in many periodicals and has been included in school readers and anthologies. She has given creative writing workshops for children as well as adults. The poems in this little collection show her expertise. There are just 33 short poems, each dealing with a subject that would interest a child. They range from the “asphalt octopus” highway of the titlepiece to the pet snake at the end. She pictures different aspects of the seasons and different likes and dislikes of children. Writing for modern children, she uses modern metaphors like the “blast-off’ for a sneeze, wondering if the astronauts might have seen the moonlit artist’s studio, and the updated “space-age” Hallowe’en. Since even the three- and four-year-olds are using computers and are well acquainted with the language of space technology, it is well that the poets who write for them keep in step. But children have also always been interested in wiggly snakes, buzzy insects, squirmy frogs, yucky food that’s “good for you,” and the miracles of nature. Lola Sneyd has met this requirement as well, giving these age-old themes a fresh and newly minted flavour.

The style of the poems is fairly consistent throughout. They are all short, all but three have a rhyming pattern, and all have a lovely swingy beat that fits the subject. Children love to have their funny bones tickled, and many of the poems finish with a tricky, jokey ending. The “frog in my throat” hadn’t better want flies for lunch. “Or wiggly bugs that squish, /For insects, flies and wiggly bugs / Are not my favourite dish.”

The illustrations in the book are done by Doug Sneyd, a cartoonist and illustrator. All but two of the poems have cartoon-like line drawings which do enhance the idea, but some have such a casual tossed-off feel to them that they are a little disappointing. Others, like the squirrel for Autumn Song and the impressionistic swirl of lines for My Window Map are delightful. This book should become a favourite with many young children.