The Swamps of Sleethe: Poems From Beyond the Solar System - Hardcover

Prelutsky, Jack

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375846743 ISBN 13: 9780375846748

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2009

Synopsis

Jack Prelutsky’s exploration of outer space is not for the faint of heart. No friendly little E.T.–type aliens await your arrival. There are many imaginative ways to perish in these darkly comedic cautionary verses about unexplored worlds so far beyond our solar system. The final poem is an environmental tour de force that packs a wallop. Here are poems the older reader will find great fun to memorize and rattle off to anyone who will listen! And there is a special bonus: anagrams for the kid who loves word puzzles.

About this title

About the Author

Jack Prelutsky was named our nation’s first Children’s Poet Laureate in 2006. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Jimmy Pickering’s deliciously scary illustrations have appeared in several picture books, and his art has enhanced the covers of all of Debi Gliori’s Pure Dead series. He lives in Astoria, Oregon.

Reviews

The nation's first children's poet laureate fills a galaxy with weird, scary planets: his 19 poems describe places and creatures you wouldn't want to visit. On planet Lonithor, for example, demon birds... eviscerate their prey./ And when they've disemboweled you,/ They'll pick apart your face; on Ogdofod the monopods will snare you in their nets,/ Then process you and package you/ To feed their hungry pets. Pickering's (Skelly the Skeleton Girl) amusing illustrations suggest images for a Tim Burton movie. A tourist on Drifig Prime resembles a frozen Corpse Bride and someone who stumbles on Planet Grob looks a lot like Edward Scissorhands. Less broad in its appeal than most of Prelutsky's previous titles, this over-the-top intergalactic odyssey will mostly please kids capable of relishing horror and its send-ups (You laugh till you wish / You'd expire of laughter, / And in that same second, / you mercifully do). For added fun, about half of the planet names are anagrams; a key is listed at the end. Ages 8–up.
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Right off it’s apparent that Prelutsky had a grand old time concocting a brew of made-up words, critters, and locales for this collection of intergalactic poems. And with the titles offering such gristly mouthfuls as “The Globulings of Wolvar Sprod,” that fun is highly contagious. The poems follow a fairly basic formula, beginning with the introduction of a bizarre planet or slavering creature and ending with dire warnings of what would happen to any children unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped on such a planet or in the clutches of such a creature. He takes particular pleasure in batting around the rhythms of these horrendous fates (“Your bones are icy splinters, / And your blood solidifies. / Your flesh becomes so frigid / It begins to crystallize”) that would be really quite gross if they weren’t so wickedly clever and well constructed. Pickering’s fiendish artwork matches him note for note and, in some cases, even outshines (or is it outdarks?) the rhymes. It’s all very ghastly and icky, which is precisely why it’s so irresistible. Grades 3-5. --Ian Chipman

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375846743
• ISBN 13: 9780375846748
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Pickering Jimmy
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40