Big, Bad, and a Little Bit Scary: Poems that Bite Back

By Wade Zahares

Book Overview

Always be kind to animals, Morning, noon and night. For animals have feelings, too And furthermore, they bite!-John Gardner Bristling with sly humor and just a hint of danger, this irresistible... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670035130
• ISBN13: 9780670035137
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.5" x 0.5" x 10.0"
• Age Range: 5 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

A Little Bit Scary and a Lot of Fun!

My daughter loves books and she loves animals, especially those usually considered unlovable. So this book was a perfect choice for her. It is full of wonderfully descriptive poems, which do not "talk down to" kids and thus have improved her vocabulary and her appreciation of poetry. Our favorites include the "Sparrow Hawk," mentioned in the Publisher's Weekly review, as well as the one about the alligator and the one about bats. My daughter has enjoyed and reread this book so often that she can recite most of the poems (she is now ten but has had the book for about three years). I highly recommend this collection!

A fun way to share poetry with kids

Big, Bad, and a Little Bit Scary is a collection of poems about the scariest members of the animal kingdom. The short, clever poems describe snakes, alligators, lions, sharks, and more. The book begins with "Always Be Kind to Animals," which starts out sentimental but then shows the scary theme of the book: "Always be kind to animals; Morning, noon and night; For animals have feeling too; And furthermore they bite!" The scariest of the poems is "Strippers": "If you fall into a river that's full of Piranha; They'll strip off your flesh like you'd skin a banana; There's no time for screaming, there's no time for groans; In forty-five seconds you're nothing but bones." I would recommend this book for children ages 8 and 9. Children this age will enjoy the images of the animals and the scary nature of the poems. This book will provide an opportunity to encourage them to read poetry. The large pictures make the book ideal to use for a read-aloud. The colorful full-page illustrations were rendered in pastel on paper. They give kids an amazing close-up view of the animals, with a drawing of a hippopotamus appearing to jump out of the page at the reader. The shadow effects of the animals at nighttime add to the overall eerie nature of the book.