Koontz and Parks, previously paired for The Paper Doorway
and Santa's Twin
, again team up in a somewhat patchy poetry collection that celebrates holidays real and imagined. Much of the rhythm is catchy and much of the rhyme clever, but the author's stab at being droll can take its toll. For example, the poem "Christmas Eve" asks, "Did you see reindeer on the roof?/ I did, I did, and I've got proof./.../ I almost tumbled loop-de-loop./ And stepped right in some reindeer poop." In other instances, the humor seems familiar, as in "Mother's Day Is Every Day, Thanks to Us," which chronicles all that kids do for their mothers (leaving bedrooms a mess, piling dishes in the sink) and concludes, "We know poor Mother would be so blue,/ If she didn't have something to do!" Koontz's intermittent forays into nonsense verse include "Holidays on Other Planets," which mentions those observed by residents of "the planet of Hurkle de Merkle/ They all gickel with sherkle and ferkle./ They snooder, snidder, and sneeder so bright,/ All through the green day and through the pink night." Balancing such silliness are simple, serious tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., and to veterans ("Memorial Day"). Parks's halftone art frames the text with images that are often comical and sometimes, in keeping with the verse, playfully outlandish. Ages 8-up. (Oct.)
