Books with author Meilo So

When Jack Prelutksy posted the first couplet of a funny poem on a Web site and invited children to finish it, he expected about 100 responses. He got thousands. Now he has come up with an anthology of poems on 10 popular subjects by well-known poets and combined it with his own “poemstarts.” Included with each poemstart are suggestions for various ways the reader might continue the poem. With large type and a big red stop sign, it is made abundantly clear that the reader get a pencil and paper to complete the poem. Jack Prelutsky has been credited with making poetry fun for children to read. Now he is making poetry fun for children to write!

Who ever heard of a cat so greedy it swallowed its friend, the parrot, then a nosy old woman, a farmer and his donkey, and even the sultan’s royal wedding procession? Meilo So’s hungry, irascible tabby just opens his mouth and—gobble, gobble, slip, slop—down its gullet they go. Each page shows the cat getting fatter and fatter until two small land crabs put an end to the cat’s greed. With a glorious gatefold pull-out, So wraps up her story with all of the victims, including the sultan’s elephant, tumbling out of the cat’s tummy as good as new. Retold from an Indian folktale, it’s as preposterous as “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” and much more fun. Children will join in the gobble, gobble, slip, slop refrain and want to look at the irresistible artwork again and again.