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Animal Stackers
Learning the ABC's can be F-U-N when you can stack the letters to create clever poetry. Part alphabet book, part word book, animal book, and whimsical poetry Jennifer Belle's quirky yet accessible style blends the genres in an unforgettable way. Coupled with David McPhail's beautiful illustrations, this is a book that families will love reading together.
40 pages, Hardcover
First published April 6, 2005
19 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Belle
11 books100 followersAn American novelist, based in New York City.
She attended Bronx High School of Science and dropped out of college. She has also written columns for Ms. magazine. In 2002, she married entertainment lawyer Andrew Krents, after they were introduced by fellow novelist Amy Sohn.
Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Observer, London’s The Independent, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Ms., Mudfish. She teaches at the New York Writers' Workshop.
-Wikipedia
She attended Bronx High School of Science and dropped out of college. She has also written columns for Ms. magazine. In 2002, she married entertainment lawyer Andrew Krents, after they were introduced by fellow novelist Amy Sohn.
Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Observer, London’s The Independent, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Ms., Mudfish. She teaches at the New York Writers' Workshop.
-Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 2, 2010
I got this book at Goodwill and it looked very cute. I absolutely love the illustrations and Logan did too. And I liked the idea, which is that each page is a little poems or phrases in which each line begins with the letters of the subject. For example, moth is:
My favorite
Old stoles have
Turned into
Holes.
The problem was that Logana couldn't really see how some of the poems related to their subjects and I had to admit that some of them required a lot of explanation. For example, Xiongmao:
Xi'an is the name of the zoo
In China where the xiongmao,
Otherwise known as giant pandas,
Nibble the leaves of trees and
Get in a good game of
Mah-Jongg while keeping
An eye on their children, who
Only want to play Ping-Pong.
Or yak:
You always complain when she gabs
And gossips, and yet you have a
Knack for yakking right back.
Anyway, the pictures were great, but we didn't get as much out of the text as I'd thought we might.
My favorite
Old stoles have
Turned into
Holes.
The problem was that Logana couldn't really see how some of the poems related to their subjects and I had to admit that some of them required a lot of explanation. For example, Xiongmao:
Xi'an is the name of the zoo
In China where the xiongmao,
Otherwise known as giant pandas,
Nibble the leaves of trees and
Get in a good game of
Mah-Jongg while keeping
An eye on their children, who
Only want to play Ping-Pong.
Or yak:
You always complain when she gabs
And gossips, and yet you have a
Knack for yakking right back.
Anyway, the pictures were great, but we didn't get as much out of the text as I'd thought we might.
November 15, 2012
Two books in one! First, it's an alphabet book, featuring animals from A to Z. Second, it's poetry, each animal is introduced by an acrostic poem. The poems range from cute and succinct:
C an't wait to be
A lone in the house
T he sofa looks comfortable.
to rather rude (the Dragon poem features a bodily function)
Most of them are simply delightful.
And the illustrations, by David McPhail, are delightful, too.
Of course you'll want to try (and have your children try) writing some acrostic poems after reading this book.
C an't wait to be
A lone in the house
T he sofa looks comfortable.
to rather rude (the Dragon poem features a bodily function)
Most of them are simply delightful.
And the illustrations, by David McPhail, are delightful, too.
Of course you'll want to try (and have your children try) writing some acrostic poems after reading this book.
June 13, 2022
My six year old and I both really enjoyed this!
June 20, 2015
As reviewed by Drunken Hobo Chet
Whosa what now with this book? I’m flim flamed to wonder what was the though process behind making a book so full of nothin’, yet chock full of the jibba jabba. Let me tell ya what I’m talking about:
This book’s all messed up. See, what happened was the author and the illustrator went the Marvel approach with this, it seems to me, but don’t worry about that cause I’m a simple hobo. The rails are my lady and my lady is fine. What I mean to say is that they came up with this alphabet, and instead of thinking “Hey, there’s a song about that, why not leave it at that?” they decided to get those letters, you know the one’s... There’s “A”, then “B”, and so on going all’s the way to “Y”.
I hear ya, “What about ‘Z’?” you yell into the cold night, the lonely night where the alphabet has no meaning. It should end in “Y” cause that’s the only question worth asking. But this book don’t. It ends in “Z” so all that don’t mean nothing.
Any whoozle, these people took the grand tradition of the alphabet and they made a picture book slash poem book out of it. At least that was the grand design. The whole thing works like a the way the old comic books used to do, the Marvel way. See this lady took the alphabetical order and she thought of all the words that could go along with that. Then she takes the letter of that word for that letter, and then she throws other words at that one to make some macka packa whatsa doodle that I guess passes for poetry. The picture guy, he takes them words and makes them a picture. While a picture is often one thousand words, these are around ten to twenty, if you take my meaning. That don’t make the pictures bad, just all nonsensical and gobbledy gook.
They all like that, all crazy like a dog that ate the chili on Sunday in church, ‘cept once or twice there’s some subterfuge a happ’nin. Fer example:
"Down in Chinatown
Roaring at all who pass,
And accidentally passing
Gas as flames shoot
Out of her
Nostrils."
That’s verbatim word for word DRAGON poetry, but if you look, you can see the devil in them DRAGON words. No Bilbo Baggins trickery here, just a subtle nod for you and yours to think the word “ass.” And that ain’t right. But the dragon's drawn all scary, so that's nice.
Got some windows you need washing? I’ll work for some nice apple pie!
Whosa what now with this book? I’m flim flamed to wonder what was the though process behind making a book so full of nothin’, yet chock full of the jibba jabba. Let me tell ya what I’m talking about:
This book’s all messed up. See, what happened was the author and the illustrator went the Marvel approach with this, it seems to me, but don’t worry about that cause I’m a simple hobo. The rails are my lady and my lady is fine. What I mean to say is that they came up with this alphabet, and instead of thinking “Hey, there’s a song about that, why not leave it at that?” they decided to get those letters, you know the one’s... There’s “A”, then “B”, and so on going all’s the way to “Y”.
I hear ya, “What about ‘Z’?” you yell into the cold night, the lonely night where the alphabet has no meaning. It should end in “Y” cause that’s the only question worth asking. But this book don’t. It ends in “Z” so all that don’t mean nothing.
Any whoozle, these people took the grand tradition of the alphabet and they made a picture book slash poem book out of it. At least that was the grand design. The whole thing works like a the way the old comic books used to do, the Marvel way. See this lady took the alphabetical order and she thought of all the words that could go along with that. Then she takes the letter of that word for that letter, and then she throws other words at that one to make some macka packa whatsa doodle that I guess passes for poetry. The picture guy, he takes them words and makes them a picture. While a picture is often one thousand words, these are around ten to twenty, if you take my meaning. That don’t make the pictures bad, just all nonsensical and gobbledy gook.
They all like that, all crazy like a dog that ate the chili on Sunday in church, ‘cept once or twice there’s some subterfuge a happ’nin. Fer example:
"Down in Chinatown
Roaring at all who pass,
And accidentally passing
Gas as flames shoot
Out of her
Nostrils."
That’s verbatim word for word DRAGON poetry, but if you look, you can see the devil in them DRAGON words. No Bilbo Baggins trickery here, just a subtle nod for you and yours to think the word “ass.” And that ain’t right. But the dragon's drawn all scary, so that's nice.
Got some windows you need washing? I’ll work for some nice apple pie!
March 26, 2015
Animal Stackers is a collection of acrostic poems about animals. I think that it would be a useful resource to teach beginning readers about animals or an introductory to poetry. It would be a useful mentor text when teaching acrostic style poems. The illustrations also add to the poems for young readers. I would recommend this book for primary age students, grades k-2. I did not like this book as much as other poetry picture books but I do think that it could be used in a poetry or animal unit.
January 8, 2015
3.5 Stars Really liked this book about 4 pages into it...then it became too much. I think if used one letter as a time for teaching or one letter a night for bed time it could be less overwhelming.. I like the concept. Making the words letters start each sentence
C an't Wait to Be
A lone in the house.
T he sofa looks comfortable
But I felt a tad overwhelmed! Still as an alphabet books I liked.
C an't Wait to Be
A lone in the house.
T he sofa looks comfortable
But I felt a tad overwhelmed! Still as an alphabet books I liked.
January 14, 2012
Jennifer Belle created something special here. Block letters spell out the names of 26 animals from A to Z, but the fun doesn't end there. Each animal name is also an acrostic poem. Many of the poems include a play on words or puts a twist on a classic fable or fairy tale.
McPhail's illustrations are fun and provide more explanation for some of the more complex poems.
McPhail's illustrations are fun and provide more explanation for some of the more complex poems.
October 7, 2009
Very cute illustrations. Works on the 'anagram' poetry where the first letter of each line spells a word vertically.
September 23, 2012
beautiful book!!!
November 7, 2013
This is an entertaining alphabet book that blends acrostic poetry with fun, cartoonish illustrations. It's a short book and we really enjoyed reading the poems aloud.
January 25, 2016
This book features a brilliant concept and fantastic illustrations. The problem is, however, in the execution. It is not really written with children in mind and it shows.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews