Review - No More Poems!: A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse

No More Poems!: A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse
by Rhett Miller
illustrated by Dan Santat
Date: 2019
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Reading level: C
Book type: illustrated poetry collection
Pages: 48
Format: e-book
Source: library

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Rhett Miller teams up with Caldecott Medalist and bestselling artist Dan Santat in a riotous collection of irreverent poems for modern families.

In the tradition of Shel Silverstein, these poems bring a fresh new twist to the classic dilemmas of childhood as well as a perceptive eye to the foibles of modern family life. Full of clever wordplay and bright visual gags--and toilet humor to spare--these twenty-three rhyming poems make for an ideal read-aloud experience.

Taking on the subjects of a bullying baseball coach and annoying little brothers with equally sly humor, renowned lyricist Rhett Miller's clever verses will have the whole family cackling.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This book falls into the "What were they thinking?!" category. You can't just add a few bathroom and fart jokes to a book of poems and say it's for kids...especially when the rest of the subject matter is wildly inappropriate for children (or anyone, in some cases).

I'm talking mainly about a poem called "Brotherly Love". It looks like most of the reviewers who had a problem with this book were just as horrified as I was. It is not funny to suggest myriad gruesome ways for a little girl to murder her sibling. Pushing him out the window (so he goes "splat"), drowning him, dousing him in gasoline and setting him on fire, and tying him to railroad tracks are all mentioned. Even worse? The parent narrator isn't telling their child not to do these things because they're horrific and wrong; they're telling the child not to do these things because the parent would go to jail. That's one messed-up family right there... and if a child's family is like that, then they need immediate help. What they don't need is to see their dysfunction reinforced in a children's book.

Other poems like "My Device" sort of suggest that some of these poems weren't written for kids in the first place. (That particular poem makes mention of visiting Mom's house with a birthday cake, as if the narrator is already grown up and has moved out.) Others are definitely for kids, but they often involve peeing or farting (yes, kids think farts are funny... but they will laugh at other things, too; let's be a little more creative, shall we?). Some poems like "Weirdos of the World Unite!" and "My Twin" seem to encourage judgment and name-calling. "How to Play Baseball" makes light of verbal abuse. The only poem I sort of like is "My Secret Karate", but it's the first poem; it's all downhill from there. On the bright side, I guess this book lives up to its subtitle.

I would definitely not recommend this to young children. Their thinking is still too literal to get much out of many of these poems. And I wouldn't recommend "Brotherly Love" to anybody. Gruesome child murder is never funny, no matter how old you are (and if you think suggesting dousing a young child in gasoline and setting them on fire is funny... well, I don't really know what to say to that).

Dan Santat's talents are wasted here. I can't even bring myself to like many of the illustrations because of what they're accompanying. For a better book with a good example of his artwork, go check out Minh Lê's Drawn Together. It's about a much healthier family relationship.

Premise: 1/5
Meter: 2/5
Writing & Editing: 1/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall Rating: 1.43 out of 5 ladybugs