Bone Poems

by Jeff Moss, Tom Leigh (Illustrator)

Jeff Moss is the children's poet laureate (New York Newsday), a Sesame Street co-creator, and the inspired author of The Butterfly Jar. Now he presents a brand-new collection of prehistoric whimsy and rhyme. Bone Poems is a joyous collection for every kid who loves dinosaurs, plays on words, and the delightful incongruities of science and nature. There's Gotta Find a Footprint, A (Mostly) Dinosaur Alphabet, and I'm Going to Ask a Stegosaur to Dinner. There's a dinosaur math quiz, free verse about a basketball-size dinosaur egg, one of the world's shortest poems with one of the world's longest titles. And, showing the kind of imagination that is completely in touch with kids, a poem about how scientists measure the intelligence of early primates by filling the skull with uncooked rice. Yucch! Illustrated by Tom Leigh

42,000 copies in print.

Genres: Poetry, Dinosaurs, Childrens

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 9, 1997

About the author

Jeff Moss was a head writer and composer-lyricist on Sesame Street. Some of his best-known songs from the show include "Rubber Duckie," "I Love Trash," "The People in Your Neighborhood," "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon," and "Nasty Dan." In addition to songwriting, Moss helped create Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, and Guy Smiley.

Moss won 15 Emmys for his work and wrote the songs for four Grammy Award-winning records. When released as a single in 1970, "Rubber Duckie" sold more than a million copies. Moss' songs were known internationally as well; Claude François' recording of "Nasty Dan" went to #1 on the pop chart in France.

He also composed the songs and score for The Muppets Take Manhattan, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Original Song Score. The Oscar went to Prince for Purple Rain.

Reviews

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bone Poems is a fun way to learn about dinosaurs, museums, and rhyming. The poems vary in length but never cease to amuse. Leigh's illustrations provide the perfect complement to the poem, allowing the reader to identify the different dinosaurs or bones in the poems. There is also hidden games within the book, like counting the number of bones on the page. This would be a good read aloud but be sure to study the pronunciation guide in the back.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute collection of poems about dinosaur bones. I really enjoyed some and others were not very engaging.

[Sarah G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded up.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable. Read for inspiration.

[Megan Eliason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laughed out loud- no bones about it- this was a fun one with the kiddos!

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great fun! Jeff Moss, Sesame Street co-creator, makes learning more about dinosaurs fun. The truth is only occasionally stretched, with explanations.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bone Poems by Jeff Moss
This book of poetry is centered around different kinds of bones, how they became bones and the ways in which they arrive at their final destinations. The poem I chose to review is, “Words That Describe the Eating Habits of Two Dinosaurs and My Cousin”. In this poem, Jeff Moss, compares the carnivorus T-Rex and the herbivorous, brachiosaurs to his cousin, Pete, who he calls a “Frenchfrivorous”, because all he eats is French fries.
Sound: The sound in, “Words That Desribe the Eating Habits of Two Dinosaurs and My Cousin”, is humerous. The author compare the tencacity in which dinosaurs eat with the way his cousin eats French Fries.
Sense: When reading this poem I got the sense that my father had picked this poem for me. This is because when I was teenager he called me the “Human Garbage Disposal”. I related with the authors cousin Pete. The main sense that I received was one of a friendly joke.
Meaning: The meaning in this poem to show the comparison of how a dinosaur eats compared to how, Pete eats French Fries.

[Courtney Canino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be quite interesting because it was all about bones with many different poems. There was not really any main characters but all of the poems had either a dinosaur in it or it was talking about their bones. The reading level for this book would be upper elementary, and it was in a 3rd person point of view most of the time. The setting of this book varied from back in the time of the dinosaurs to places now like museums. The plot of this book is to explain what dinosaurs did, the different types, their life styles, what happened to them, what they looked like and their bones in the museums. The main idea was the dinosaur's extinction, the past, and what type of creatures they were through poetry. I would definitely recommend this book because each poem was unique yet they all had a similar theme.

Closing statement: Dinosaurs and Poetry are a good match.

[Kest Schwartzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

**edit** having placed the author's name, I'm now wondering if these would work better SUNG. Not sure. Maybe I'll try it with the nephew.

meh. I picked it up because there was a buy one get one free at the bookstore, and I had counted wrong. It was worth "free" but wouldn't've been worth the one dollar it otherwise would've cost. Some of it's cute, some of it's fun to read aloud, but a lot of them the rhyme and rhythm patterns are so screwy that the only way you can read them is to pretend you're wearing a beret and snap a lot to fill in the gaps.

There's a difference between free-verse and fucked-up-verse. this is the latter.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bones are important,
They do a big job.
Without them, you'd be just
A big squooshy blob.

[Olivia Harris]

I really liked the theme, dinosaurs! It's full of great poems for teaching a lesson on dinosuars or just getting students interested.

[Lydia Moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of poems of all different kinds of bones. Human and dinosaur bones are in this book. This book would be good during a fossil unit.

[Selenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book of poems. I love the layout and illustrations in this book.

[Helen Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun and unexpectedly educational book of paleontological poems!