The World's Greatest: Poems
By J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Keith Graves
Chronicle Books; $16.99
36 pp; ISBN-13: 978-0811851305

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

In this quirky and delightful book of poetry, J. Patrick Lewis and Keith Graves pay tribute to the -est of everything: the kookiest, talkingest, shortest, tallest, dumbest, winningest, crookedest, and more. The World's Greatest: Poems features poetry penned in honor of real-life events, told with pluck and playfulness and in some cases, formatted to a tree -- er, that should be T (I just finished reading "The Tallest Christmas Tree," in which the lines of text run at varying lengths so that taken as a whole, the poem is in the shape of a tree).

Lewis' poetry is in a variety of styles, all very kid-friendly, both in topic and meter and rhyme. For example, "The Most Kisses" goes, "Wolfram Alfred, super-duper, pucker-upper, quicker smacker…" In "The Talkingest Bird" -- in honor of Puck, a budgerigar with a vocabulary of more than 1,700 words -- the bird's chatting is interrupted only by peanut butter, or more specifically, "pnnnut bttttr."

From stone skipping to the smallest American newspaper (The Daily Banner, published in a 3" square in 1876 in Roseberg, OR), the longest time stuck in an elevator to sled dog race winners to scorpion-eating, The World's Greatest: Poems is chock full of the unusual and the humorous; kids will get a kick out of the topics and Lewis' approach to them, one that finds the humorous angle in even the most mundane, like the longest traffic jam ever or the man who remained standing for 17 years. A brief note accompanies every poem, citing the who, what, where, and when of each record with enough detail that young readers can go look up any of the topics they want to know more about.

Keith Graves' acrylic paint and colored pencil work deftly blends the reflection of two poems per page. For example, the man wearing the kookiest hat is depicted walking down the shortest street or the wave carrying the message in a bottle for 82 years crests just before hitting the tallest roller coaster. Bright colors and brush strokes emphasize the noteworthy elements of each poem beautifully, playing the action for laughs as much as Lewis plays the poem for laughs.

J. Patrick Lewis has written dozens of books for young readers, including Once Upon a Tomb: Gravely Humorous Verses and Arithme-Tickle: An Even Number of Odd Riddle-Rhymes. Keith Graves has written and illustrated The Unexpectedly Bad Hair of Barcelona Smith and Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance. Combined, the artwork and the text make for a highly illustrative book that makes poetry just plain fun.