This collection of poetry includes 21 short poems that each focus on a different mammal. Common mammals are featured such as the tiger, giraffe and zebra, but there are also some uncommon mammals such as the ibex, tapir and aardvark.
The poems are humorous and straight forward. In the poem about lemurs, �lemurs breeze through trees without breaking femurs.� They are also imaginative, such as �The Lynx� which says �Some people wear fur coats of lynx. I think that stynx.� All of the poems use rhyming words, but they don�t all contain the same rhyme scheme. An interesting thing about the language is that Florian purposely spells words wrong in order to make the words look similar to the animal�s name. For instance in �The Aardvarks� the word �are� is spelled �aare�, �stark� is spelled �staark� and �dark� is spelled �daark.�
All the poems certainly have a rhythm to them and read well aloud. A wide range of sound elements are used in the different poems including alliteration (clever, cunning, crafty � �The Fox�), consonance (prowl, growl, howl - �The Coyote�), assonance (bray, bay, hay, stay - �The Mule�) and internal rhyme (ibex, necks � �The Ibex�).
The poems don�t have a lot of figurative language. One example of a hyperbole is in �The Giraffe� when the author implies that a giraffe is a �cloud-checker� and �star-trekker� because giraffes are so tall. There isn�t much sense imagery used in the poems either. The illustrations seem to do most of the describing instead of the poems themselves.
The collection is extremely well designed. The illustrations are drawn well and are just as funny as the poems. The illustration for the poem �The Rhebok� shows a rhebok wearing Reebok tennis shoes. The illustration for �The Otter� shows an otter sitting in a big bathtub reading a book about water. The illustrations go along nicely with the poems and don�t overshadow the writing.
The collection is made up only of poems by Douglas Florian, who also drew the illustrations. The poems themselves are timeless for the most part because they are referring to animals. There is a table of contents, but no index. An index isn�t really necessary however because the poems are so short and the subject of each poem is in fact the title of the poem. The poems don�t seem to be grouped in any specific way. The style does vary from poem to poem but not drastically. Some of the poems, �The Porcupine� and �The Lemurs� for example, have very interesting line spacing, that could almost make them concrete poems, but not quite.
The poems are appropriate and appealing for young readers, but are humorous enough to be enjoyed by older readers as well. Florian�s use of humor and illustrations that correspond with each poem make this an enjoyable collection, and his use of a wide range of sound techniques make it a well written one as well.
