Review - Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire!

Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire! (Fancy Nancy)
by Jane O'Connor
illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
Date: 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: hardcover
Source: library

Calling all poets!

Fancy Nancy Clancy is so poetic, even her name rhymes. And with limericks, couplets, free verse, and more, poetry is plenty fancy! So when her teacher Ms. Glass gives Nancy and her classmates an assignment to come up with their very own poems, Nancy is determined to write one that is superb. But what happens when she can't think of a good idea?

Complete with Nancy's very own poetry anthology, Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire! shows how a true love of words can be très fancy. Ooh la la! And with a little inspiration, which is fancy for something that helps you get good ideas, Fancy Nancy just might be a Poet Extraordinaire after all.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is another quasi-non-fictional Fancy Nancy title, this time teaching kids about poetry. Nancy's teacher, Ms. Glass, gives the kids an assignment: write a poem. The poems will be written on paper leaves so they can go on the Poet-Tree (a cardboard tree on the classroom's wall). Nancy then gets to learn about different kinds of poems. Sometimes they rhyme, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're serious. They can be started by using the letters in a word. They can even be song lyrics! But Nancy has a problem: inspiration just won't strike. Until it does, she just has to keep exploring the wonderful world of poetry. (Little does she know that inspiration has been sitting right in front of her the whole time!)

The book features quite a few poems. Nancy goes around asking people their favourites, and most of those are included (except for her dad's, but those are Bob Dylan song lyrics, so I'm assuming that either they weren't appropriate for kids or the publisher couldn't get the rights). Nancy also shares a notebook of some of her favourite (kid-friendly) poems.

I didn't like this one quite as much as Fancy Nancy: Explorer Extraordinaire! But it's still a fairly strong picture book, and it does teach kids quite a bit about poetry. I would still recommend it, especially to Fancy Nancy fans.

Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 4/5
Illustrations: 4/5
Originality: 4/5

Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 3.83 out of 5