Poetry Friday: Kid Tea

Poetry Friday

Kid Tea by Elizabeth Ficocelli, illustrated by Glin Dibley. 2007. Copy provided by publisher, Marshall Cavendish Children.

The Plot:

What, you may ask, is "kid tea"? Place a dirty child in a bathtub; and that's your kid tea! Playing in the dirt: brown kid tea. Eating a purple Popsicle? Purple kid tea. The week ends with Sunday, a visit to church, and two kids saying "Dunk me in the tub, please." What color? "Look -- no kid tea! We can be clean for one day . . . "

The Good:

This works as both a cute book (kids do something, kids get dirty, kids clean up) and a concept book about colors.

"Wednesday, friends day,
markers-paints-and-pens day.
Blobs of yellow
shake like Jell-O,
dribble-dip-and-slop day,
should-have-worn-my-smock day.
Dunk me in the tub, please,
for yellow kid tea!"

I really like Dibley's illustrations. The kids are appealing, and each day incorporates many shades of that day's color. The art is "pencil, acrylic and Photoshop in a mixed-media technique." (And the font is Woozee. I just wanted to type in Woozee.)

When I get in picture books, I put them in a pile and wait for Cheetah and Peter Parker to come over. They sit, sort thru them, give me feedback. (Sometimes, it's amusing; Cheetah, an animal lover, wanted me to read Parrotfish to her based on the cover. But she was bitterly disappointed by the lack of illustrations.)

Peter Parker zoomed in on this one. Loved the colors, loved pointing out the colors. Loved that there is a brother and sister, doing things that they do. This is a good pre-reading book; it's easy for him to memorize, and to identify the colors and then for us to find the word for that color.

Links:
Just One More Book podcast review
Chicken Spaghetti review

The Poetry Friday round up is at Big A little a.