Review - Garbage Delight

Garbage Delight
by Dennis Lee
illustrated by Frank Newfeld
Date: 1977
Publisher: HarperCollins
Reading level: C
Book type: illustrated poetry collection
Pages: 64
Format: e-book
Source: library

Peppered with regional names, sing-song rhythms and a dash of wicked fun, Garbage Delight has been a staple on Canadian bookshelves for thirty-five years. Its forty-two superbly crafted poems offer a feast of silly, sassy and soothing verses for every taste, from the thundering “I Eat Kids Yum Yum!” to the more lyrical “The Coming of Teddy Bears.”

This handsome classic edition featuring Frank Newfeld’s original illustrations and book design will have a new generation of readers banging their spoons for more.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

Ugh! Nope.

I thought some of the poems in The Ice Cream Store were pretty bad. Outdated. Inappropriate. But this... This is even worse.

Garbage Delight is as old as I am... and that makes me feel positively ancient. Many of the poems in here are just plain nonsense. Others are kind of offensive (like the one about the girls with facial hair where one of them blows her face off with a bomb). Some are downright horrifying; one poem has a child throwing his little brother from the CN Tower. When that inexplicably doesn't kill him, he stuffs him in the furnace and waits eagerly for December when the heat will go on.

Both of these poetry collections are too old. There are only a few poems that could work for today's audiences. They should maybe be collected and put into a new volume with nicer pictures. (I'm not a fan of the illustrations here. They're outdated--again, that seems to be a theme--and not particularly appealing to look at. I liked the pictures in The Ice Cream Store much better.)

I can't recommend this. If you want a cringe-worthy look at what was deemed appropriate literature for kids in 1977, have a look... but I wouldn't recommend letting a child read it.

Selection: 2/5
Meter: 2/5
Illustrations: 1/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall: 1.6 out of 5

Review - Alligator Pie

Alligator Pie
by Dennis Lee
illustrated by Frank Newfeld
Date: 1974
Publisher: Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd.
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 64
Format: e-book
Source: library

Dennis Lee won the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1972 for his poetic meditation on Canadian identity in Civil Elegies, but he made perhaps his most enduring contribution to Canadian nationalism two years later with a short collection of near-nonsense rhymes written for a much younger set. Alligator Pie, which remains the classic Canadian bedtime book, is written as if Mother Goose had the Latin name Branta canadensis, from William Lyon Mackenzie King, who "loved his mother like anything," to Trois-Rivières, which, of course, rhymes with "eat your hair."

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I've known about Alligator Pie for years.  I was introduced to the title poem when I was in elementary school.  Its bouncy rhythm is unforgettable.  I'm not sure if I read the book as a child or not, because none of the poems seemed familiar (with the exception of "Skyscraper", which I'm pretty sure was read to us in Grade 1).

Given that this book is almost 40 years old, it's not surprising that aspects of it feel a bit dated.  Some of the illustrations are obviously from another time.  A poem about measles and mumps shouts that it's from another era.  And perhaps spousal abuse was once considered humourous, but that's no longer the case.

However, that being said, there are still a number of highly enjoyable poems in this collection.  "Alligator Pie" is one of the best.  "Ookpik" made me giggle.  "On Tuesdays I Polish My Uncle" has some delicious rhymes involving a pet shark.  "The Friends" is a sweet little poem about a child and their friend named Egg.  "Tricking" is a cute poem about reverse psychology.  "The Sitter and the Butter and the Better Batter Fritter" is so much fun to read aloud... if you can do it without cracking up at your attempts at the tongue twisters within.

This book is also extremely Canadian.  Poems like "In Kamloops", "Bed Song", "William Lyon Mackenzie King", "Tongue Twister", and "Kahshe or Chicoutimi" all feature distinctly Canadian people or places.  There's even a poem about hockey, appropriately titled "The Hockey Game".

The meter of these poems is such that they have a tendency to get stuck in your head, like a jump-rope song.  Some of them reminded me of the poems in A. A. Milne's When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.  I did not realize that Dennis Lee had been a lyricist for Fraggle Rock.  The whimsy and fun he brought to those songs is on full display here.

If you can overlook the few dated poems and illustrations, you'll probably find quite a bit to like here.  It would be a fun book to read aloud to children... but it's also fun for adults who just want to indulge their inner child.

Selection: 3/5
Meter: 4/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 4/5
Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3.4 out of 5