Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking

Poems written by Alan Katz with illustrations by Edward Koren. Alan Kratz is the author of the Silly Dilly series including the bestselling book, Take Me Out of the Bathtub.  He has been in the entertainment industry for 30 years, as print and television writer.  Includng Emmy nominated TV shows and writing parody songs for the Rosie O'Donnell Show and countless other children's cartoons. He is a self proclaimed child at heart who specializes in humorous and silly stories. For more information about Katz visit his site. Koren, a New York City resident is a famous illustrator and cartoonist, most notably for his work in The New Yorker.



Genre: Fiction
Theme: Poetry/Humorous Stories
Ages: 7-11

Summary: The book of poetry includes one hundred some poems with simple pen illustrations. Each single or open page spread contains one poem and drawing with 'side slitting' humor. The poems are whimsical. They clearly follow an influence of both Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. There is a prominent use of nonsense words and language to ensure rhyme scheme, such as Seuss's work would include, and the meter and simple pen illustrations are also reminiscent of Silverstein's popular work.

Link to Picture

There are so many poems I would read one or two at a time, maybe as a transition activity as students line up for lunch or on the way back into the room settling into the next subject area.

Post-Reading Activity:  Give students random pictures, collected from getting cards, magazines, and newspaper ads. Have each one come up with a small silly poem to go with their picture.

Reflection:  The poems are very cute and easily relatable to children. Topics that children can relate to and understand at great depth, such as the painfulness of homework, sibling rivalry, food, and other silly things.  The thing I enjoyed the most about these poems were that, even as an adult I was laughing at them. I could return to my childhood and relate back to the perspective of the children in the poems. I also particularly enjoyed the extremely witty plays on words that were utilized in many of the poems. Children would enjoy the poems for the themes and silliness alone. However, these poems could be utilized in higher grade levels, and enjoyed by adults, because of its clever puns.