So Many Dynamos!: and Other Palindromes - Hardcover

Agee, Jon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374224730 ISBN 13: 9780374224738

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 1994

Synopsis

Jon Agee and his better half, Eega Noj, have conspired again to inspire palindromania in Mom, Pop, Sis, and the family pup. With over sixty new reversible absurdities, readers will be doing a double take, while the preposterous illustrations leave them begging between guffaws, No, Jon!

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Palindromic pundit Agee follows up his Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog! with another volume of black-and-white cartoons and punchy captions that can be read forward or backward. Some of the palindromes clearly will tickle kids' fancy: "Pupil's slipup" shows a child drawing a caricature of his teacher, unaware that the subject of his ridicule is peering over his shoulder; and a girl sipping through a straw looks aghast at hairy bumps on it ("Straw warts"). Other Agee creations seemed aimed at adults: in "Diana Bruno, On Urban Aid," a woman points at a labyrinthine diagram of where tax dollars are going; and "Flo, Gin is a sin! I golf!" says one golf-club-toting nun to a sister grabbing a drink at a bar. Two other palindromes also involve bar scenes, which may offend some parents, librarians or teachers. Also running to the off-color (but likely to please kids) are such cartoons as that of a dog lifting his leg as he addresses a man painting the Tower of Pisa ("As I pee, sir, I see Pisa!"); and that of a scientist gazing through an enormous microscope as a colleague wonders what he sees: "Snot or protons?" All ages.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Gr. 3-6. Like Agee's earlier collection of palindromes (words or phrases that read the same, backwards or forwards) Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog (1992), this book features one palindromic phrase per page or spread. Cartoonlike drawings with gray washes give the sometimes oddly matched words such as "Gabe's on a Nosebag" and "Snot or Protons" a context, giving readers a reason to chuckle at an otherwise irrational phrase. The book will certainly please children (and adults) who love wordplay; they'll marvel at Agee's inventiveness. Even children who have never heard of a palindrome will be drawn to the cartoons, while readers fascinated by concept may want to try writing (and illustrating) their own. Carolyn Phelan

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0374224730
• ISBN 13: 9780374224738
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80
• Illustrator: Agee Jon