Something Big Has Been Here

If you like Shel Silverstein you will like Jack Perlutsky. Something Big has Been Here is full of fun and silly poems that are imaginative an animated. The poems are not only engaging, but they are short making it easy to turn the page and continue reading until the end. The illustrations are simply drawings down with a pencil and shading, but it allows just enough detail to help picture the poem in your mind. This is a great collection of poems that will engage children and help them grow to love poetry.

This is one of those poetry books that I keep in the front of my classroom and is so dog eared that I may have to replace it soon! You can pick up this book and read any of the wonderful poems in it and children of all ages will be laughing and happy to hear such funny poems. Jack Prelutsky has such an imagination to sprout such tales of silly goofy subjects, I am glad to have found him early in my teaching career.

Something Big Has Been Here is an anthology of poems, starting with a poem with the same title of the book, Something Big Has Been Here. It is about something BIG that left a footprint. The book continues with poems about animals, people, siblings, and poems with silly titles. Each poem from beginning, middle, and end are clever, thought-provoking and relatable.
There are several poetic elements in the poems throughout the anthology. The poems include rhyming, "They tell me I'm peculiar, they seem to think I'm odd, they look at me and grimace, I smile at them and nod." Alliteration- "I am Wunk, a wacky wizard, and I wield a willow wand." Repetition- "I'm sorry I squashed a banana in bed, I'm sorry I bandaged a whole loaf of bread, I'm show more sorry I pasted prunes to your pants, I'm sorry"... etc. Simile- "The salad tastes like soap." Assonance-"Unflappable Five, we're mustered in formation to climb, to dip, to dive." The poems are fun and funny, a great way to introduce kids to poetry. (Parts of this review was taken from Alexandra Welsh's review on Good Reads.) show less

This is another great collection of Jack Prelutsky poems. These are funny poems that child and adult alike can relate to. The rhythm, rhyme, and repetition make all of these poems easy to read and enjoy.
I really liked these poems and found several that strongly reminded me of things my daughters say to me. Being 5 and Don't Yell At Me were my two favorites.
My classroom extensions would be for the kids to write and illustrate a poem of their own. Also, it would be fun for them to act out their favorite poems from the book.

Summary:
This poetry book has a bunch of different poems that are great for kids. One of the ones I enjoyed was Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes. This poem was about how pestering mosquitoes to be and that you just want them to stop bothering you. Another poem in this book was called my Woolen Sweater Itches Me. This poem was about an itchy sweater and how much it itched. The best part of the poem was the ending where it said "think about how sheep must feel." This last part really gets kids thinking.

Personal Reaction:
I really liked this book of poems because they were a lot of fun. Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes was a great poem because I could really relate to mosquitoes always pestering me. I also could relate to wearing a sweater that itched when I show more was little.

Classroom Extension:
1. In the classroom, the teacher could have their students make up their own poems and then share them with their classmates.
2. In the classroom, the teacher could have their students share what their favorite poem is and share as to why it was their favorite. show less

Review: Something BIG has been here is a collection of poems talking about funny things that kids do. My favorite was My Sister Ate an Orange because it means that she ate an orange crayon (along with other colors), not a fruit.

Personal Reaction: I like that it is a fairly long book so it could entertain children for a while and that even if some are sad, all the poems are about things that someone in your class is bound to be able to relate to.

Classroom: 1) Everyone could pick funny things that they enjoy doing, like eat like a pig, and have the rest of the class try it, or write about it.
2) Everyone could write a poem describing something without naming it, and trade poems with their classmates. Then the other children could guess show more what the poem is about. show less

This book is a collection of short, humorous poems.

This would be a great book to have in the classroom, and you could choose a couple to read daily as a morning opener or afternoon closer. This book can be used to introduce poetry to students as well as display the effectiveness of rhyming. After reading a few poems, students can create their own humorous poem to share with the class.