Bubblegum Delicious [Hardcover]

For nearly three decades, the rambunctious rhymes of Toronto poet laureate Dennis Lee have delighted Canadian kids. And Bubblegum Delicious, his first new collection in several years, sparkles with the wit, wordplay, and sense of wonder that infuse all of Lee's poetry for children. As always, Lee has found just the right device for enticing young readers into this rich and imaginative world, here in the story of a young boy who has moved away to a new place and has had to leave his best friend behind. There are poems about remembered hiding places, a new television set, imaginative games, and questions about just what it is that makes up a friendship and what makes someone lonely. But Bubblegum Delicious is also trademark Lee, with wonderfully giddy and giggly poems that invite young readers to meet the King of Calabogie, who keeps coughing up the most remarkable things, listen to the swinging sis-boom-bang boogie-woogie rhythms of Doctor Bop, or wistfully remember a faithful jelly doughnut just waiting to be munched up in a faraway doughnut shop! There are totally gross poems like "Goober and Guck," soft, gentle verses that explore the natural world like "The Spider's Web," and the lullaby "You Too Lie Down," which closes the collection. Illustrated by the ever-madcap David McPhail, who has provided just the right images to bring Lee's poems to life, Bubblegum Delicious is a book that young readers will return to night after night after night. (Ages 4 to 8) --Jeffrey Canton

Lee and McPhail (The Ice Cream Store) return with another consistently outstanding collection of verse. Working in a range of moods, Lee serves up cheerful nonsense rhymes as well as poems that find elegance in the everyday: "You too lie/ down, the drowsy room is/ close and come to darkness./ Hush, you/ too can sleep at last. You/ too lie down." A chain of entries links the volume to the timeless authority of playground chants and Mother Goose rhymes in their recasting of childhood classics, as in "I ordered a TV-vee-vee/ To see what I could see-see-see" or "Fly me round the microwave./ Fly me round the moon./ Fly me like a millionaire/ On a Saturday afternoon!" Of note are slangy minor entries, printed in small type and worked into the illustrations (e.g., printed sideways, along the pickets of a fence; or between the branches of a leafless tree); these unfold silly surprises, including several with a mild gross-out factor and one about the Beatles. McPhail, working in his spring-like watercolor palette, unifies the poems by featuring a boy and a dog. The pair calmly coexists with the dragons or lions or wooly mammoths that make themselves at home in the art, as do a group of comically outlandish bugs. Startling readers into appreciation, the dexterity of Lee's language and of McPhail's detailed pictures guarantee discoveries on every page. Ages 5-9.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr 1-4-As in Lee's The Ice Cream Store (Scholastic, 1992), these 32 poems offer lots of rhythm and rhyme, but many of them chart deeper emotional waters. "The Question" is one of several on friendship. "-Or if I knew the way to heaven/The names of night, the taste of seven/-Would you come and be my friend?/-The names of night cannot be known,/The way to heaven cannot be shown./-But still I want you for my friend." This is balanced with a celebration of gross fun on the facing page with "Goober and Guck." Several poems depict nature with striking imagery, such as "The Spider's Web": "The sun upon a spider's web/Makes jewels in the air,/As though the light was tangled up/In someone's windy hair." Pretend play is celebrated in "The Rocking Chair" and "The Mighty Hunters." McPhail's illustrations are filled with light, color, shadows, whimsy, and detail; they handsomely fill most pages and enhance the poems' rich imagery, solemnity, and silliness. On almost every page, a blond boy is accompanied by his small dog and a large, boldly colored insect, inviting a personal response to the deeply felt poems. The deftly shaped images in these poems reward multiple readings with a celebration of childhood, friendship, and life.

Laura Scott, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. A boy (a familiar-looking McPhail character) and his dog are the constants in this collection of poems for children. Sometimes the two are pictured with a giraffe, an elephant, and an owl, as in the illustration for the basketball rhyme "Dunking." Most often, however, the watercolor art shows an assortment of multicolored, irresistibly grotesque bugs that cry in "The Movies," play the drums as "Doctor Bop," and add humorous punch with their own verses. The insects' rhymes, in diminutive type, are tucked into unexpected spaces in the illustrations, waiting to be discovered and to surprise with their nonsensical fun. Lee's longer poems, in regular-size type, vary from comedy to emotion ("The Tantrum") to bedtime ("You Lie Down"). There's something to please nearly every child in this imaginative collection. Ellen Mandel
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The deep inventiveness, wit, and poignancy of Lee's poetry . . . reign in these poetic adventures of the imagination. -- Horn Book (starred review)

Bubblegum Delicious is a brand-new book of poetry from internationally acclaimed children`s author, Dennis Lee. Together with spectacular illustrations by David McPhail, the book is an important children`s publishing event.

Using the rhymes and rhythms of ball bounces and schoolyard and street rhymes, Lee has created a breathtaking collection of poems that contain all the wonder and wistfulness of childhood - from sublime goofiness to winsome poignancy.

David McPhail has created a complementary world - real but magical, peopled with a young boy, his beloved dog and a wacky collection of psychedelic bugs. These bugs, in turn, deliver their own world of verse-a world of bratty, hilarious quatrains that act as a delightful counterpoint to the whimsey and gentleness of the main poems.

From the poet who brought us Alligator Pie, Garbage Delight and Jelly Belly comes a collection destined to join these titles as a classic of Canadian childrens` literature. (2000)

DENNIS LEE is the beloved author of many poetry collections for children and adults alike. His books include Alligator Pie, Garbage Delight, Jelly Belly, Bubblegum Delicious, and So Cool. He lives with his wife in Toronto, where he was recently the city's first poet laureate.

David McPhail has written and illustrated more than eighty books for children. He lives in New Hampshire.