cover image A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry

A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry

Marjorie Maddox, , illus. by Philip Huber. . Boyds Mills/Wordsong, $16.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-1-59078-510-2

Despite its arresting cover and its focus on animal poems, this collection lacks consistency. The 14 poems highlight intriguing collective nouns and alternate between clever descriptions of real-life animals and off-the-wall fantasies about them. But often the poems’ meters are wobbly, the conceits are labored, and the rhymes are off-center or forced. Likewise, Huber’s intricate scratchboard illustrations, most of them enhanced with colored ink, are unevenly executed. They marvelously capture the delicate veins in a “charm of butterflies,” the bold black-and-white designs contained in a “crossing of zebras” and the terror of a scarecrow confronting a “murder of crows.” But when depicting other animals, like “a pounce of alley cats” or the armor-clad “crash of rhinos,” the figures seem rigid and awkward. Sometimes the illustrations do not match a poem’s content—only 17 of the author’s 22 “cartload of monkeys” are shown, and the “band of coyotes”giving a 1960s “psychedelic” concert “talking ’bout my generation” include, oddly, members tooting a kazoo and a hunting horn. A note from the author explains the etymologies of some favorite collective nouns. Patricia MacCarthy’s unfortunately out-of-print Herds of Words remains the exemplar of this concept. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)