Beastly Verse

Reviews / Votes

Selected for the New York Public Library's List of 100 Best Books for Reading & Sharing A Booklist Editor's Choice for 2015 A Book Links magazine choice for the top classroom picks for 2015 "Gleefully distinctive stylings, fluorescent colors, and beautiful bookmaking should make an eager new audience for these old poems." -- Kirkus Reviews "The main attraction, of course, is Yoon's stunning, exuberant artwork, and poetry classes would be well served by this superior piece of bookmaking." ---- STARRED REVIEW, Booklist "Here is William Blake's "The Tiger" burning bright amid inky-green foliage on a page that folds out to show his fearful symmetry. Here too is Lewis Carroll's "The Crocodile," set against a subtly hilarious illustration that shows not only the little fish swimming into the monster's "gently smiling jaws" but the skeletons of those who have already made the trip. Though the book concludes with Walter de la Mare's drowsy "Dream Song," this gorgeous compendium is so stimulating that it's probably best read in the bright light of day." -- Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal "Half a century after Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls, legendary artist Tomi Ungerer's illustrated compendium of famous authors' verses about brothers and sisters, another singular illustrator of our own era applies the concept to a different domain of the human experience -- the inclination toward thinking with animals in making sense of our own lives. In Beastly Verse (public library), her spectacular picture-book debut...illustrator and printmaker JooHee Yoon brings to vibrant life sixteen beloved poems about nonhuman creatures, real and imagined -- masterworks as varied in sentiment and sensibility as Lewis Carroll's playful "The Crocodile," D.H. Lawrence's revolutionarily evolutionary homage to the hummingbird, Christina Rossetti's celebration of butterfly metamorphosis, and William Blake's bright-burning ode to the tiger." -- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings "In her U.S children's book debut, Yoon creates a monstrous menagerie to accompany 16 poems about animals real and imagined. Her bold, vintage-looking prints use only three colors--a lurid yellow, bright pink, and creamy teal--that overlap to create secondary shades. The sharply contrasting colors make the grinning, grimacing, snarling creatures seem to pulse with electricity, and foldout pages enhance the sense of movement. [...] A fierce and fresh bestiary." -- STARRED REVIEW, Publishers Weekly "JooHee Yoon's "Beastly Verse" is very much about its pictures. Three-color illustrations of critters fill up page after intense page, cheerily aggressive, goofy, beastly-friendly. Yoon's poem selection is economical, intelligent, even hip." -- DAISY FRIED, The New York Times "Beastly Verse is a mischievously beautiful work of art. This book of 16 poems is simultaneously gorgeous, thrilling, and very funny... This book should certainly be hailed and celebrated for its incredible design and artwork -- as far as books of poetry go there's nothing I've found to rival this book. The use of colors and layout are nothing but perfect. The illustrations match, reflect, and elevate poems you didn't really think could be added to -- and yet here it is." -- The Picture Book Review "This is a collection of animal poems... with gatefold surprises and Yoon's distinctive and stylized art, so vivid in its palette that the spreads pop off the page."-- Seven Impossible Things "The poems are cleverly selected for child appeal and yet many of them aren't specifically children's poetry, allowing children to stretch a bit and learn more about poetry and their own reactions to it ... The illustrations here are the star and what will have children and adults alike picking up the volume." -- Waking Brain Cells