Guess Who, Haiku

Caswell (Beach House) and Shea (I Will Chomp You!) combine an outdoorsy guessing game with an introduction to haiku through a chain of guess-the-animal interactions. Each poem gets its own page (“new day on the farm/ muffled mooing announces/ a fresh pail of milk,” reads the first one), followed by the recurring question, “Can you guess who from this haiku?” A turn of the page reveals the answer, and the discovered animal offers a new haiku for children to decode. Working in his familiar bold, graphic style, Shea offers plenty of visual clues to help readers guess, while placing the action in a simplified barnyard setting that keeps the focus on the animals. A closing page that briefly explains the structure and goals of haiku should prove useful to children curious about the form. Ages 3–5. Illustrator’s agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Mar.)