Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs

Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs
by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen, illustrated by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins
Charlesbridge, 2012. 31 pgs. Poetry

If you like your humor a bit on the black side, and laugh out loud funny, this is the book for you. In rhymes reminiscent of Edward Gorey's pictures and verse ("B is for Basil, Eaten by Bears . . . ), this is a picture book for the Lemony Snicket/Goosebumps crowd. Most of these funereal verses are short: "R.I.P. (Really Inattentive Piranha) The second-sharpest/teeth in the river."
or "Ciao, Cow" - "This grave is peaceful,/the tombstone shaded,/but I'm not here--/I've been
cream-ated." Some are longer; all are funny. The pictures in shades of gray, black, brown, and . . . red (some pictures are a bit bloody) are very funny but would likely frighten smaller children or chicken-lipped adults such as myself, so I would recommend this book for older children, teens, and courageous grownups.

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