Something BIG Has Been Here by Jack Prelutsky - Drawings by James Stevenson

This collection of poems provides several humorous poems that combine rhyming and free verse within one hundred fifty three pages. Prelutsky truly plays with language in the creative topics and antics portrayed in the poems. There is a humorous play on the types of meals served in school cafeterias that employs alliteration with catchy titles of entrees: "Fried Flying Fish Fins," "Pickled Pelican Parts," and "Cracked Crocodile Crunch" are some tasty examples. The name of the poem is "Grasshopper Gumbo." Another poem makes fun of people who thrive on complaining and disputing others' opinions: "The Disputatious Deeble." This poem quotes several retaliatory remarks from a grouchy person who is unable to see the good in a cheery adversary. "Lovely gravy!" may bring out the retort, "An awful sauce." If you say, "Sweet butter!" the Disputatious Deeble may say, "Salty Cheese." Another poem plays with phrases with multiple meanings, "I Wave Good-bye When Butter Flies." This poem is funny as it plays with common phrases in different contexts: "...It makes me sad when lettuce leaves, I laugh when dinner rolls, I wonder if the kitchen sinks and if a salad bowls..." Prelutsky entertains with his poems as the reader delilghts in the many possibilities for playing with language and conveying humor through carefree poetry topics.