Poem-Mobiles:  Crazy Car Poems by J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian, Illustrated by Jeremy Holmes, Schwartz & Wade Books 2014

If your boy likes cars you have to check out Poem-Mobiles—really!  We loved this book and can’t say enough about just how neat it is.  Where to start?  There is so much that is great it is hard pick a place to rev up our engines 🙂

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The poems are wonderful, imaginative and just plain fun.  The very first poem in the book is Giant Bookmobile of Tomorrow.  Being big library people we thought that was a great place for the authors to start. The driver is the Gingerbread Man, its fuel is “imagination power” and its speed is “a dozen aisles per hour.”  It will “entertain on cruise control.”  Honestly, this is a really fun book.

All of the poems are short and enjoyable.  They are highly entertaining and will keep a car and vehicle lover very happy throughout the whole book.  There was only one poem that we didn’t care for but we read a lot of poetry books and are pretty fussy.  That there was only one that we didn’t like says a lot.

Moving on to the illustrations in Poem-Mobiles.  Wow, the illustrations!  They are very unique, unusual, quirky and even a bit odd—in a very good way.  I really enjoyed them and my son also thought they were pretty cool.  He liked the little details in the pictures as well as the amusing signs and labels.  For example, the illustration for the poem The Egg Car has a woman in a car with egg shells and scrambled eggs and a mechanic asks her what she hit and she says “A Fork in the Road.” HA!

Even the author and illustrator information is amusing.  Each person is shown on a driver’s license.  J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian have “Poetic License” on the top of their card and Jeremy Holmes has “Artistic License” on his—love it.

With great language use and fun as a main ingredients, Poem-Mobiles is a winner.  We put it at highly recommended for those who like their poetry a bit on the amusing side and their illustrations to travel beyond the boring sedan.

You “auto” get it!

p.s.   J. Patrick Lewis is a former U.S. Poet Laureate.  Follow the link for more information.

Check out our other reviews on great books for boys.