Giant Children

Written by Brod Bagert

Illustrated by Tedd Arnold

Scholastic, 2002

27 pages

Poetry Collection

      This is a collection of poetry that I borrowed from my CT. The eyeballs of these "Giant Children" took me back at first. It was the first thing that I noticed. The collection starts out with a poem talking about the giant children. Turns out, the point of view of this poem came from the class hamster! One of the funniest poems in the collection is called "Booger Love", and it has a disclaimer at the top warning children to never recite it to a "grown-up" because it is so disgusting, and it is disgusting!

      The illustrations are not very life like, but are very funny. I am, of course, referring to the giant eyeballs! The pictures all have circular, uniform marks all throughout them, and the colors are mostly primary colors.

The illustrations were done with colored pencils and watercolor washes.

      This book would be appropriate for middle grades, starting with 3rd grade. The students would identify with all the silly situations these characters get into. You could use this to do a poetry study. "Giant Children" would also be good for character development-what not to do! You could turn some of these rhymes into songs for the students to memorize.