Munching: Poems About Eating. 1985. Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Ill. by Nelle Davis. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Well known anthologist Lee Bennett Hopkins puts together a buffet of delicious poems about food and eating by noted poets such as Ogden Nash, Jack Prelutsky, Russell Hoban, Lewis Carroll, and Margaret Hillert. From Prelutsky's tribute to pasta in "Spaghetti! Spaghetti!" to Hopkins's street vendor bark, "Get 'em here," this book is a collection of short-but-sweet, easily digested poems that will appeal to kids of all ages. Everyone eats! And who can resist "Popsicles" and "Apple Pie"?
Set one-to-a-page in a large, comfortable font with lots of white space, the poems are presented in an inviting format for early consumers of poetry. Each poem is accompanied by a full-color, full-page illustration that captures the whimsical mood that permeates the collection. A table of contents and an index of authors, titles, and first lines allows readers to find favorite poems easily.
Fun rhymes ("Is my craving so outlandish / for the perfect turkey sandwich?"), alliterations ("city's smallest store"), assonance ("tucked...under...umbrella"), and word plays throughout the poems make them fun to read aloud over and over again. I particularly enjoyed Maxine Kumin's description of an artichoke: "with layers of petals to peel / like a box inside / of a box this wide / in a box in a box with a seal." Several of the poets play with form (Arnold Adoff's scattering words that reflect a child's attempt at using chopsticks, for instance), making their poems visually meaningful, too.
If you've ever slurped up spaghetti, stared eye-to-eye with a pair of sunny-side-up eggs, or felt a popsicle melt on your lips, you'll love this yummy collection.
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