My Head Has a Bellyache

July 28, 2023

Gr 2-6-This expansive, anarchic poetry collection boasts excitement, surprises, words of wisdom, absurdist digressions, and laughs galore. In the tradition of Silverstein and Prelutsky, Harris cleverly tackles themes both serious and silly, bringing cheeky levity to his philosophical turns ("The Dance of the Misfits," "The Place Where the Lost Things Go") and formal elegance to his humor ("Sometimes I Dream," "Orloc, the Destroyer"). Bouncy rhyming couplets in Seussian anapestic tetrameter are paired with Tsurumi's cartoonish black-and-green digital illustrations. Metatextual jiggery-pokery abounds: footnotes flip the meaning of the accompanying verse; a numerical poem unfolds across the bottom of each page; early on, a news bulletin announces an incoming meteor, which strikes more than 70 pages later, obliterating the collection's title poem. At one point, the author's children take over and present their own "book-within-a-book." Not every comedic bit lands; for instance, "The Road to an 'Aha!, '" written along the winding path of a maze, saddles readers with the twin difficulties of deciphering a byzantine typeface and turning the book (or their heads) 43 times. All in good fun, but the prosaic, overly broad message about uncertainty is hardly worth the effort. The poem does reappear in a conventional layout later on-placing it directly after its confusing first iteration could have helped. Sprinkled amid the wild shenanigans are such deceptively complex topics as paradoxically expressing independence by resisting the ubiquitous advice to "be yourself" and the eternal temptation to procrastinate. VERDICT An appealingly ridiculous book, recommended for poetry and humor fans.-Jonah Dragan

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2023
"Mint-chip ice cream (so fantastic!), / Key-lime taffy (so elastic!), / Bags of all-green jelly beans... / Every day I eat my greens!" Come for the funny poems; stay because there's so much to pore over that you can't put this collection down. Harris follows up I'm Just No Good at Rhyming (rev. 11/17, illustrated by Lane Smith) with another meta extravaganza. There are intrusions from, ostensibly, Harris's own children, including a "book-within-a-book." There's the threat of a meteor heading for the pages, which pays off just when you've forgotten about it. Poems appear in footnotes, in the glossary, and spread out among the folios (page 65: "When one becomes senior (traditionally)" / page 66: "A famous old route that's from song and TV"). The green and grayscale digital illustrations are often a critical part of the action, as in the poem where snakes are ignoring their duty to serve as the letter S, with hilarious results. (A few poems are more sincere than silly, providing a chance to catch your breath.) Don't miss the back matter, including but not limited to an index by subject (e.g., "Eek! There's a bug!" and "Paper, with some ink on it") and a "partial list" of "non-books by neither Chris Harris nor Andrea Tsurumi," which includes tricycles, Belgium, and Toy Story 2. Shoshana Flax

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from May 1, 2023
A hefty gathering of versified reflections on topics from "dadding" to what the Nail-Clipping Fairy brings at night. Pitched as the companion to I'm Just No Good at Rhyming (2017) but with artwork from Tsurumi rather than Lane Smith, Harris' latest collection focuses on parenting, growing up, and like domestic themes. Along with parental revelations ("Secretly, we do the things we tell you not to do! / We leave our dirty clothes out, and we pick our noses, too") and efforts to recall "My Very First Memory," he explains that "The Place Where the Lost Things Go" is right here, extolls the virtues of "A Big, Comfy Chair and a Brand-New Book," and gleefully reassures children that even in the dark they're never all alone, because..."there are monsters!" Like Smith in the previous volume, Tsurumi plays a maverick role. In addition to a racially diverse cast of wide-eyed youngsters and grown-ups, they depict a set of animal critics regarding a villanelle with disgust and, in the wake of a warning on an early page, a meteor that plunges down later to annihilate an unfortunate poem. Though the adult perspectives and high page count make this a marathon run, protestations notwithstanding, the author is still just fine at rhyming, and that, not to mention his free-wheeling sense of humor, will keep young audiences reading all the way to the (rhymed!) glossary and into the goofy title and subject indexes. Sidesplitting fun throughout for one or a crowd. (Poetry. 6-10)

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 1, 2023
Grades 2-5 *Starred Review* This companion to Harris' I'm Just No Good at Rhyming (2017) kicks off with positive tenacity: "World, watch out! I'm on my way, / And NOTHING's stopping me today!" But the slapstick windup, "I cannot fail! I'll NEVER LOS . . . E / Whoops, I didn't tie my shoes," sets up readers for more hilarity in this mostly rhyming collection of poems. Silly takes on parents, siblings, school, growing up, and other tried-and-true topics for young readers are paired with more outlandish scenarios, from a valentine to someone you don't care about to an elderly caveman complaining about the younger generation's new fire technology ("They sit for hours, every night / Just gazing at the firelight. / They watch a burning log or bush . . . / It's turning all their brains to mush!"). It's not just the subject matter, though, that's sure to bring a laugh. Harris plays with poetic forms, even combining a limerick, haiku, and villanelle into one poem; becomes meta, introducing a book of poems within this book; qualifies page numbers, such as "Blackjack!" for 21 and "The Number That Robinson Sported" for 42; and, from the start, maintains a running gag about a meteor that tears through the poems. His jaunty rhymes will continue to delight the next generation of Shel Silverstein and Jon Scieszka fans.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2023
"Mint-chip ice cream (so fantastic!), / Key-lime taffy (so elastic!), / Bags of all-green jelly beans... / Every day I eat my greens!" Come for the funny poems; stay because there's so much to pore over that you can't put this collection down. Harris follows up I'm Just No Good at Rhyming (rev. 11/17, illustrated by Lane Smith) with another meta extravaganza. There are intrusions from, ostensibly, Harris's own children, including a "book-within-a-book." There's the threat of a meteor heading for the pages, which pays off just when you've forgotten about it. Poems appear in footnotes, in the glossary, and spread out among the folios (page 65: "When one becomes senior (traditionally)" / page 66: "A famous old route that's from song and TV"). The green and grayscale digital illustrations are often a critical part of the action, as in the poem where snakes are ignoring their duty to serve as the letter S, with hilarious results. (A few poems are more sincere than silly, providing a chance to catch your breath.) Don't miss the back matter, including but not limited to an index by subject (e.g., "Eek! There's a bug!" and "Paper, with some ink on it") and a "partial list" of "non-books by neither Chris Harris nor Andrea Tsurumi," which includes tricycles, Belgium, and Toy Story 2.

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)