BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Calef. 2006. Flamingos on the Roof: Poems and Painting. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 9780618562985
PLOT SUMMARY
Calef Browns offers 29, brief, amusing poems with no particular linking theme other than the sheer absurdity of each respective topic. The characters featured are humans, animals and plant life, perfect for stimulating young imaginations.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Calef Brown’s collection of poetry is a colorful work of imagination. The poems follow no specific rhyme pattern: some rhyme, some do not, and the poems that do rhyme have mostly unpredictable rhythms. Every other phrase may rhyme in the first stanza while phrases in a following stanza do not rhyme at all. The unbalanced rhythms of the poems give strength to the witty nonsense of the phrases, and it makes for entertaining oral interpretations when reading aloud.
Brown plays with consonance and alliteration to create catchy phrases, such as “The B’s are beautiful blue,” and “Listen to the lingo/Boogie to the banjo/Bop to the bongo.” He uses action verbs paired with pictures of characters moving with the words. Children can become interactive with such poems, and be encouraged to move along with the words.
Some of the poems are as humorous as they are random. Brown peppers his prose with punctuation such as exclamation points, question marks and dashes to help readers with phrasing and emphasis. The accompanying, whimsical and cartoonish artwork for each poem also helps to set the tone. Each poem can be associated with a color. The poem about sherbet is blue, cold like ice cream. The poem about dancing is yellow, sunny and energetic. The title poem “Flamingos on the Roof” features no evidence of flamingos, but the setting of the dark, windy night is clearly portrayed. The color scheme provides an almost mysterious emotion to the poem about immaterial flamingos. The poem about a haiku has an accompanying painting that is mostly done in greens and warm browns with palm trees, and haiku poems are usually associated with nature and natural elements. A poem about a man singing the blues is paired with a painting done in somber blues and greens. Brown captures the emotion and mood of his poems with his artwork which further adds to the comedic or absurd elements in his work.
Brown’s works, in their entirety, are beautiful, fun-loving pieces of silly rhymes and phrasing that children will love to read and have read to them. They may even be inspired to create their own poetry that knows no rules or boundaries.
BOOK REVIEW(S)
Grade 3–6–These 29 nonsense poems, written in a variety of rhymed meters, are deliciously loaded with alliterative and assonant sounds and filled with delightful doggerel. Brown's playful verses are foolish (Life is a dream/with a nautical theme/in a barnacle built for two.); preposterous (Light bulbs on a birthday cake./What a difference that would make!); exhilarating (Boogie to the banjo./Bop to the bongo./Freeze like an igloo./Stomp like a buffalo in the Combo Tango); and filled with wordplay (Allicatter Gatorpillar/by and by/my oh my!/Allibutter Gatorfly!). The author's strong command of poetic form and his way with words make creating nonsense rhyme look effortless. Full-page, flat acrylic illustrations, most painted in harmonious jewel tones, face single-toned pages of text in a variety of colors. The style is abstract with a folk-art quality, often cartoonish, and always whimsical. The characters have humorous, stylized features and varied skin tones, ranging from pale blue to light green to burnt umber. Packed with amusing details, the paintings consistently expand upon the text. Read aloud, these poems are sure to delight listeners. They also provide a great impetus for inspiring youngsters to write nonsense poetry of their own.–Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH—SLJ.
Gr. 3-5. Meet Medusa's sister, Sally, bespectacled and toothy. Instead of hair, she has a lazy snake under her proper pink hat. Brown's lively nonsense rhymes blend the mythic and the contemporary, as do his acrylic illustrations, part folk art, part postmodern. The wry mockery of the haikus will appeal to older readers, but even preschoolers will enjoy acting out poems such as "Combo Tango" ("Stomp like a buffalo. / Drop like a yo-yo. / Swing like a golf pro. / Flip like a hairdo . . . "). One of the best poems is "TV Taxi," in which the words say there's nothing much to see, but the pictures show a taxi driver on his cell phone as a volcano, a dinosaur, a flying saucer, and a unicorn vie for attention. Words and pictures manage to be both clear and weird, an enjoyable mix. Hazel Rochman—Booklist.
"Brown's imaginative wordplay is matched by his acrylic paintings depicting people and places in unusual hues. . . . Silly it may be, but all the best kind, prompting the reader to see the world (slightly) askew and to delight in it." --Horn Book.
"Brown’s lively nonsense rhymes blend the mythic and the contemporary, as do his acrylic illustrations, part folk art, part postmodern. . . . Words and pictures manage to be both clear and weird, an enjoyable mix." ––Booklist, ALA
"Twenty-eight more flights of fancy from a rapidly improving nabob of nonsense. . . . Composed with a fine ear for consistent rhythms and silly wordplay, these verses will tempt readers into repeat visits." --Kirkus Reviews
"A hearty salute to eccentricity." --Publishers Weekly
"The author's strong command of poetic form and his way with words make creating nonsense rhyme look effortless...Read aloud, these poems are sure to delight listeners."-- 15MinutesMagazine.com
CONNECTIONS
If children are looking for more fun and silly rhymes with colorful, eye-catching illustrations, they may enjoy the following titles:
Brown, Calef. 2008. Soup for Breakfast. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 978-0618916412
Brown, Calef. 2010. Hallowilloween. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 978-0547215402
Brown, Calef. 2009. Dutch Sneakers and Flea Keepers. Boston, MA: Sandpiper. ISBN 978-0547237510
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