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Beastly Verse

by Joohee Yoon
Enchanted Lion Books, 2015. Poetry.

In this collection of poems, Joohee Yoon draws upon both classical and modern verse, including selections by Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, and William Blake. Every poem is about a (mostly-real, some-imagined) member of the animal kingdom. The poems on display are a fun, diverse group that will help a young reader learn more about this form, as the poems have many different meters, rhythms, and styles.

But the poems are not the only reason to pick up Beastly Verse -- they are accompanied by some extremely exciting illustrations by Yoon. Her style comprises three primary colors: cyan, magenta and yellow. She then blends the colors to create a secondary palette that fleshes out this sorta-psychedelic animal world. It's gorgeous. Between the fun literary collection and the wild illustrations, readers have many, many reasons to check out this book.

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