Author:  Joe Sottile

Illustrator:  Lori DeLeonardis-Aman

Publisher:  Booklocker.com, Inc.

ISBN:  1-59113-495-1

The following review was contributed by: Jennifer Brown:   Jennifer Brown & Click Here To View Jennifer Brown's Reviews

A PARADE WORTH WATCHING

Quick!  Give me a list of three children’s poets.  Got it?  Let me guess…you listed Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss, and Shel Silverstein.  How about Joe Sottile?  Never heard of him?  You will. 

Over the past several decades, children’s poetry has morphed from the sing-song Mother Goose rhyme of yesterday to more complex poetry that speaks to the issues important to children in ways so silly, irreverent, or even grotesque as to render elaborate color illustrations unnecessary.  Joe Sottile’s poetry in PICTURE POETRY ON PARADE! is a perfect example of how charming this change can be. 

Move over Mother Goose, stand back Dr. Seuss – Joe Sottile’s parade is coming through!  Joe Sottile met illustrator Lori DeLeonardis-Aman when they taught together in upstate New York.  The two of them pooled their talents – Joe’s poetic abilities and Lori’s cartooning – to turn out a small book of children’s poetry reminiscent of Shel Silverstein.  The book (originally titled Bathroom Vacations and Other Poems) is PICTURE POETRY ON PARADE! 

PICTURE POETRY ON PARADE! features poems about the things most important to kids:  school, parents, teachers, homework, siblings, food, bugs, and sports heroes, just to name a few. 

Proving a true educator at heart, the best poems offered in the book are the school poems, which are funny:

“‘Sonny, you gotta go to school.’/

  ‘I never want to go back there.’/

  ‘Son, you gotta go to school./

        You’re the principal.’”

(Sonny, p.2)

And absurd:

“I can’t write today because my underpants are too tight/”

(Can’t Write Today, p. 28)

And even poignant:

“Rain, snow, sleet, blistering heat,/

or bone-chilling thunderstorms,/

Mr. Shannon was waiting at the door,/

‘Today is a super-great day/

and it’s going to get even better.’

 (Today, p. 8)

Sottile is able to rhyme with the best of them, but is not limited to verse alone.  He’s adept at repetition and makes good use of Leonardis-Aman’s illustrations in some poems to make them pleasing to the eye.

Likewise, DeLeonardis-Aman’s illustrations are perfectly suited to the book, being simple yet able to convey vast emotions, mostly through facial expressions, that bring each poem to life.

Because the most well-written and entertaining poems are the school-themed poems and the book is arranged in two themed parts – “Part One:  School” and “Part Two:  Home” – the book is best read randomly rather than in cover-to-cover fashion, so as to get a healthy mix of both subjects in one sitting.

This book belongs in classrooms and on bookshelves of anyone who has elementary school-aged children at home.  The repetition in some poems lend well to beginning readers, the subject matter lend well to young readers who get “bored” easily, and the humor lends well to…everyone else.