The poems within this book are so imaginative, clever, and bizarre that I never tire of hearing them. This book is composed of several different poems of several different types. My personal favorite from this book has always been “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo” which unveils the tale of the old hermit who was in love with the Lady Jingly Jones, whose heart belonged to another across seas. In a fit of despair, the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo ropes a sea turtle and sails off into the sunset, leaving Lady Jingly Jones alone behind him. In this book you will not simply find one-type of basic-pattern rhyming poems. You will find a beautiful array of literary artwork. The illustrations in this book are also extremely detailed and imaginative. With a book like this you could do a whole unit on poetry. You could use this book to look at the different types of poems: Limericks, A/B Rhyme patterns, and free verse. You could have the students create their own non-sense limericks, and illustrate a picture to go along with it, and put together a classroom poetry book. Students could also practice oral skills by choosing a poem from this book to read aloud to the class.
