Scranimals: A Playful Collection of Silly Poems About Wordplay for Kids

by Jack Prelutsky, Peter Sís (Illustrator)

We're sailing to Scranimal Island,

It doesn't appear on most maps....

Scranimal Island is where you will find the fragrant Rhinocerose, the cunning Broccolions, and if you are really, really lucky and very, very quiet, you will spot the gentle, shy Pandaffodil. (You may even hear it yawning if the morning's just begun, watch its petals slowly open to embrace the rising sun.

So put on your pith helmet and prepare to explore a wilderness of puns and rhymes where birds, beasts, vegetables, and flowers have been mysteriously scrambled together to create creatures you've never seen before –– and are unlikely to meet again! Your guides –– Jack Prelutsky, poet laureate of the elementary school set, and two–time Caldecott Honor artist Peter Sis – invite you to join them on an adventure you will never forget!

Ages 4+

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, Childrens, Animals, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Jack Prelutsky is an American poet. He attended New York public schools, and later the High School of Music and Art and Hunter College. Prelutsky, who has also worked as a busboy, furniture mover, folk singer, and cab driver, claims that he hated poetry in grade school because of the way it was taught. He is the author of more than 30 poetry collections including Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep< and A Pizza the Size of the Sun. He has also compiled countless children's anthologies comprised of poems of others'. Jack Prelutsky was married to Von Tre Venefue, a woman he had met in France. They divorced in 1995, but Jack remarried. He currently lives in Washington state with his wife, Carolyn. He befriended a gay poet named Espiritu Salamanca in 1997 and both now work together in writing poems and stories for children and adults alike.

Reviews

[hale]

this is my scranimal oc, strawbeary



minimal effort went into the character art and name

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prelutsky is one of those names I remember when I was a kid, one of those names which convinced me poetry is worth pursuing. I love poetry to this day and try hard to instill the same love in my children. Using Prelutsky to brain wash my kids into loving poetry is effective. They love this book, and in between hearing their admiration for the imaginative and fanciful mixed up creatures within these pages, I was not above slipping in the occasional "poetry is good. poetry is good. poetry is good". Gotta hit 'em while they're young, before stupid kids at school tell my boys that poetry is only for girls or dorks.

Anyways, I can not imagine ever meeting a child who would not love this book. My 4-year-old was enchanted by the art and my 6-year-old kept asking me to explain specific words. The rhymes were simple but also excellent for introducing new vocabulary. Highest recommendation, especially as a gift.

[Sabra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prelutsky devises all manner of oddball animals by combining creatures with food or flora -- the very stupid Avocadodos, the awkward Spinachickens, the shy Pandaffodil and, my favorite, "the Detested Radishark":

In the middle of the ocean,
In the deep deep dark,
Dwells a monstrous apparition,
The detested RADISHARK.
It's an underwater nightmare
That you hope you never meet,
For it eats what it wants,
And it always wants to eat.

Its appalling, bulbous body
Is astonishly red,
And its fangs are sharp and gleaming
In its huge and horrid head,
And the only thought it harbors
In its small but frightful mind,
Is to catch you and to bite you
On your belly and behind.

It is ruthless, it is brutal,
It swims swiftly, it swims far,
SO it's guaranteed to find you
Almost anywhere you are.
If the RADISHARK is near you,
Pray the beast is fast asleep
In the middle of the ocean
In the dark dark deep.

Each poem is accompanied by charming illustrations by noted artist Peter Sis.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 - This was a bit of a let down. I was so pumped when I found this because Julia and I have a game we love to play where one of us comes up with two totally different animals and then we both try to figure out the best name for their baby. You can imagine my surprise and happiness when I found this.
First, this isn't just mixing animals, the author threw in vegetables and fruit, which just threw the entire thing off for us. There are enough animals in the world to stick with the animals, much like the title, Scranimals suggests.
Second, the things being mixed weren't any good. Maybe two or three, tops. This is something where anyone can come up with a great mix. It's not hard. It's actually very fun and very easy. I mean, a potato and a toad? Come on.
The poems were okay, nothing special. I won't pretend to be big on poetry though so I don't know how much my opinion there is worth.
I would love, love, love to find a book more suited to our game. I know we'd both adore a well done book of that kind.

[samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

porcupinniapples

[Nancy Kotkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Text: 4 stars
Illustrations: 4 stars

Single-author collection of children's poetry about fictional animal hybrids. Animals are crossed with flowers, fruits, vegetables, or other animals. Meet the rhinocerose, bananaconda, radishark, ostricheetah, and more. The meter and rhyme of the poems make them fun to read aloud. To aid readers, pronunciations are provided.

Detailed drawings, infused with watercolors, bring the creatures to life. I love the almost other-worldly quality of the art, but I wish the color palette wasn't so restricted.

[Sean Harding · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yep well I guess some people may like this, I guess it is somewhat inventive, but it really didn't do much for me. Clearly I'm not the target market for this, but it really was well pretty dull, to be honest, and instantly forgettable.

[Heidi Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

2018-2019 K homeschool year. These poems captivated my son for months and inspired us to make a family book of our own scranimals. Not a huge fan of the illustrations myself, but the kids loved them.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took my niece and nephew to the library today, and my niece spotted this one on the shelf. She became very excited and told me how great the book was. We checked it out, and the three of us read this together.

The book was very similar to Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant: And Other Poems, but I think the kids enjoyed this one considerably more. The illustrations were more engaging, and made strong use of the background as well as the foreground. Creatures we had just visited, or were to visit on the next page appeared in the background, and I think that helped the kids stay anticipatory as we read along.

The poetry was quite good, too, with very few, if any, awkward lines. It was full of great vocabulary, but also accessible to the kids. My niece and nephew are not big poetry fans, so frankly, I was surprised by how much they seemed to enjoy the poems in Scranimals. I did stumble over the names of some of the creatures in this book, but the author did provide pronunciation keys, which helped quite a bit.

Overall, this was an interesting book, and I get why my niece was excited about it. I'm glad the kids enjoyed it, but I am also glad I don't have to pronounce some of those difficult creature names on a regular basis.

[Natalie O'neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of poems is really silly and funny, as is most of Jack Prelutsky’s poetry. What I found to be unique about this particular Jack Prelutsky anthology is that all of the poems focused on one theme - Scranimals. Each poem was written about a different fantastical animal that lives on “Scranimal Island.” As is typical with any Jack Prelutsky poetry, there are very distinct rhyme schemes and a great, creative use of vivid language and imagery. This would be an excellent book to use to model creative poetry writing. An interesting activity would be to read one of the poems to the students without showing them the illustrations, then have them draw what they visualize in their minds.

[Taji Joly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scranimals is a great book for a 2nd to 4th grade read aloud, and a great way to introduce poetry to your students. Students will not only find the subject matter interesting as the author and illustrator have taken real animals and scrambled them with flowers, fruit, or other animals! They will also find the poetry and combination of illustrations ludicrously humorous with such animals as the "BANANACONDA" and the "BROCCOLION." I would personally like to include Scranimals in my classroom read aloud collection to teach students the different rhyme schemes which can be found in the book, such as ABAB, ABCB and AABB. I can even envision students in my class coming back to find this book during silent reading time, as it is a perfectly engaging read.

I also believe that Scranimals is an interesting premise for any reader since it takes the idea of something students may find dull and uninteresting (I certainly didn't see the merit in poetry as a kid) but brings it to life in a way students can find silly, endearing, and interesting. Having the "bananaconda slip and slither out of its skin" is not only vivid imagery, but perfect prose as well as a great example of how to model your own poems as a young reader. The "Mangorilla" was certainly imaginative, and describing its actions with the "Orangutangerine" as "sparring" and "cavorting through the jungle" also gives readers an excellent vocabulary range, teaching them new words and demonstrating that this book is so well-rounded it can serve many purposes. I loved the beginning in which you as the reader are uncertain what is about to happen as the children adventurers begin by preparing for a trip to "Scranimal Island," a preparation which dives right into the first page with a poem. I would say that Scranimals is reminiscent of Dr. Seuss because of the silliness and rhyming, but it stands on its own as a great read and certainly its own premise. I don't believe it truly qualifies as a multicultural read, but I also don't believe this qualification is necessary as the main focus/stars of the book are the scrambled animals. The main characters were somewhat ambiguously drawn, but overall I found this book truly exceptional and look forward to adding it to my classroom. 4.5/5 stars!

[Corinne Creighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a very delightful read that will have you laughing at the text but also memorized by the illustration. This book is very easy and fun to follow along because it follows a rhyme scheme. This book is about an adventure on an island where you get to see and read about different sorts of animals. However, the catch is that these are not ordinary animals. These animals names are combined with either fruits, flowers, or other animals. For example, in this book you will get to read about the "Hippopotamushrooms" or the "parrotters."
I enjoyed myself very much while reading this book. Jack Prelutsky does an excellent job of making the reader engaged in the adventure he takes us on. The rhymes he writes are very fun to red and it keeps the reader wanting to read more. The illustrations do an amazing job of bringing the text to life! Each page has its own distinct color scheme and it really makes each animal distinct. This is definitely a book I would recommend for a teacher or a parent, students and kids will really enjoy this read.

[Sophia Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could be read aloud to kinder-first-grade level but is actually the reading ability of 2-5th grade because the made-up words can be kind of difficult. The whole book is funny as it is random animals mixed with a food item. I read the poem "There!" and it is humorous because it mixes a Mango and Gorilla and Orangutang and Tangerine. The combination usually has a similarity in both words like Radish and Shark both share a "sh" so they are combined to make "Radishark" which I think is pretty funny and kids probably will too. There are Porcupinapples and Broccolions and Potatoad and the illustrations try to best represent what these mixtures may look like.

I could use this in my classroom to help with imagination and poetry and it could be used to show kids that poems can be about anything! This provides great examples of simple poetry trends about crazy ideas and I think it could be really inspirational. This could be a great example to kids about how poems don't have to be serious or about real things always even though they can be.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book that I stumbled across in the library and read because I think weird hybrid animals can be fun. It was a bit disappointing. The creature designs are weirdly inconsistent; most are a hybrid of an animal with a plant, especially fruits and vegetables, but some are just hybrids with other animals, like the ostricheetah or parrotters. The poetry is not bad but is just sort of nonsense and left me thinking "so what"; if there was a more consistent vision or logic to the setting I think I would have liked it more, but it is just too random. Probably not a bad book for children, the intended audience, but I think a better choice would be The Dragons are Singing Tonight by the same poet and illustrator duo.

[Steph Lovelady · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked this out of the library out of pure nostalgia. My son absolutely loved this book for years when he was in elementary school. He used to like to invent his own animal/fruit-or-vegetable hybrids and draw pictures of them when he was around eight years old. We had a CD of the poems set to music as well. In 5th grade, when his class did a poetry recital, instead of reading a poem from a paper like the other students, he memorized "The Detested Radishark" and sang it. He's a senior in high school now and still remembers the tune. He favored us with a performance of it tonight and it really took me back, though his singing voice has gotten a lot deeper in the past seven years.

I couldn't give a book that's given our whole family so much pleasure over the years anything less than five stars.

[Alex Haven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Used for assignment 8

This book was very creative in combining names of animals and food or plants to create a brand new "Scranimal" that lived within this book. Each of the names was funny and provided a challenge to pronounce. The illustrations also combined the animal and other object to make it appear as if it was a real organism. The book takes you across the island and introduces you to the different animals and tells you about them through poetry.

This book was a funny book that would provide some laughs if it were to be read to students. I would use this book as a way to boost creativity and imagination of students. It would also be a fun assignment for the students to create their own combination of animal and object. This book would probably be better for older students if they were reading by themselves because of the made up words of animals.

[Jessie Boyette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great way to introduce poetry to students. The appropriate age I would introduce this story would be, 1st-3rd grade. This book is about Scranimal Island where it introduced many different interesting animals. The illustrator took pictures of real animals and combined them into flowers and fruits. The narrator combined the different words to create funny names for the animals, for example, "Broccolion." The book also provides amazing examples of rhyme schemes. This is an excellent story that is engaging to the students and adds so humor by changing the names of animals. Students can laugh and engage in this "silly" book to increase their increase of reading. This is an interesting book that I would introduce to my future students to increase their knowledge of different rhymes and poetry.

[Lori C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: Children's Poetry
Ages: K-4th grade

This is such a clever book! I love the poetry and the creativity of the characters and the illustrations! The vocabulary was very, very difficult but what a great way to expand a child's vocabulary in a way that will stick with them. An elephant with tiny wings trying to fly is the definition of futility. The "bulbous body" (page 29) of the radishark is an image that one won't forget. The illustration of the pandaffodil is the picture of "languorous contentment"(page 36). The illustrations are so good and the context so clever, that many upper elementary students will be able to discern the meaning of these words without a dictionary.

[Isabelle | Nine Tale Vixen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have very fond memories of playing "Scranimal Island" with my second-grade classmates, a highly rigged version of tag inspired by the fantastical creatures in this book. I also have very fond memories of all the books my second-grade teacher read to us, including (among many others) this one and Flat Stanley.

That said, I do have to admit I don't remember much in the way of specifics about the poetry in this collection, just that it made us laugh and, as mentioned above, inspired us for months.

[Diana Costello · Rating 5 out of 5]

You might think this is just a children's book, but I have used it for Comp I and high school creative writing classes. It is just a wonderful romp of a read for children, but can be used for higher thinking skills for upper level writers. I had my creative writing class combine a plant with an animal to give interesting characteristics. Many included it in their final portfolio with an illustration.

[Hannah Holthaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I thought it was super creative with the imaginary creatures that Prelutsky created in this book. Not only were the images original, but the poems that went along with the creatures were also super original and creative. I think that this book would be an awesome project that teachers can incorporate in their own classrooms by having students create their own creatures, draw them, write a poem or story about them, and then create a class book with it.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary:
This book is a compilation of poems about what you may see on Scranimal Island. The author makes imaginary animals by scrambling animals and plants like vegetables and flowers. There are animals such as Pandaffodils, Antelopetunias, and Broccolions.

age appropriate:
1st- 4th grade

Review:
This book is silly and would be high interest for children. This book does a good job at introducing poetry to your students. These poems contain literally elements characteristic of poetry.

[Peyton Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book that could be used in the classroom to foster imagination and a love for poetry. After reading this book, students can be challenged to created their own scranimal, draw a picture, and write about it. Students are often not fans of poetry because they do not find it interesting. Students can be as creative and silly with this assignment as they please! This will encourage students to think that poetry and reading is fun!

[Joria Alvarado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Key words: animals, poetry, make believe.


As they sail to scranimal island, they come to find many different animals (fantasy). There are animals that look just like real ones but a bit dramatized for the book. It is really cute with the poem describing each one.

The poetry in this book was narrative because it is describing the animals in the story. The poetic elements did have rhyme, figurative language, and sensory imagery.

[Elizabeth Estling · Rating 5 out of 5]

i was very eh on this book. beautiful drawings by Peter Sis as always but as an adult it was okay. the poetry was excellent and cute but the concept was just okay. My kids however ADORED this book. We had to check it out a second time from the library. So on behalf of them im giving it 5 stars. now i will say that the rhythm of the poems are very pleasing to read, so despite it being a 3 for me, i didnt mind reading it daily for weeks and weeks.

[Gabriella Bumbaca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grade: 2-3
Genre: Poetry
Review:
This was such a cute, fun book!! I can already tell the children will LOVE the animal mixed that Prelutsky creates. I think it could easily lead to an art activity where children create their own animal mixes! It might also be a challenge for them to go through the story and actually try to figure out what two animals be mixed for each one!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book because they're made out of different things and different fruits and different animals; mostly just fruits and vegetables. (Vegetables too, you know, because vegetables are more healthy than fruit.) And they're made out of different animals too! And that's obvious too, so you might know. And it shows what the different parts are on the back.

[Sarah Lancaster · Rating 4 out of 5]

3rd-6th Grade
Genre: Poetry

This fun and lively book creates a wonderful understanding of rhyming poetry. It not only has interesting and fun illustrations by Peter Sís, but it also has a cool rhythm and flow to the story. As students read this, it will create a better understanding of rhyming poetry, but also that they are able to create their own style and storyline in their poetry.

[Amanda Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Scranimals" is a book of poetry intended for children ages 4 and up, it has won the "Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award for Picture Book" in 2004 and the "Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award for grades 3-6" in 2006. "Scranimals" contains a collection of poems that details two children's adventure to Scranimal island and the different Scranimals they find. The scranimals are a combination of two different animals combined, an animal and a vegetable combined, or an animal and a flower combined. I thought each poem was engaging and interesting. I enjoyed reading each poem. The language in each poem is silly, creative, and detailed. Although I enjoyed the poems, the reason I rated this book four stars is because the vocabulary in the poems are more advanced and challenging, especially the names for the Scranimals. I think the vocabulary would be too difficult for four year olds. It did help to have the pronunciation of the Scranimal at the bottom of each poem but without it would be hard to show and teach children how to say the words. I thought the illustrations were engaging and bring the text to life, and really help visualize what Scranimal island and what the Scranimals look like. But another reason I rated the book four stars is because I wish the colors were brighter. They were detailed and gave an image to the creatures but many of the illustrations were dull looking. I do think this book would appeal to young readers because I think they would be drawn to the illustrations and they would enjoy reading and re-reading the rhymes. However, I would recommend this book for children 5 and up because of the challenging and advanced vocabulary. When working with children this book could be used to do a lesson on compound words, a lesson on phonetics, or each poem could be read out loud to children without showing them the pictures and ask them to draw what they imagine the scranimal to look like. This book could also be read out loud to children as a class and then after the book is finished the children could be asked to brainstorm in groups or individually, some of their own Scranimals. After they come up with some Scranimals they could practice writing the words and drawing the pictures for their Scranimals.

[Tessa Zimmerly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genre: poetry
Grade: 1st-5th

I thought this poem book was funny. All of the creatures are mixed with something else. I found many of them are mixed with food. I thought it would make a good children’s book for the younger ages.