A STRANGE PLACE TO CALL HOME- Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Ed Young

What's better than a new poetry book?

A new poetry book 
with Marilyn Singer's name on the front!

And what's better than a new poetry book
with Marilyn Singer's name on the front?

A new poetry/science book 
with Marilyn Singer's name on the front!

And what's better than a new poetry/science book
with Marilyn Singer's name on the front?

A new poetry/science book 
with Marilyn Singer's name on the front 
that's illustrated by Ed Young!

In case you haven't figured it out by now, Marilyn Singer's new book A STRANGE PLACE TO CALL HOME is definitely a must have. In this book, Singer views the world of animal adaptation through a whole different lens. Some animals, like flamingos, mountain goats, and camels, and Humboldt penguins, are old friends; but there are also a lot of relatively unfamiliar animals,  including snow monkeys, spadefoot toads, ice worms, blind cave fish, limpets, mangroves, dippers ( a kind of bird), petroleum flies- that range from the strange to the really strange. And is as typical Singer (if there is such a thing as typical, because many of her books, e.g. mirror mirror are pretty unusual), she  addresses them through many different poetry lenses, e.g. haiku, sonnet, triolet, sinquain, villanelle, and even a terza rima (new to me!). In each poem, Singer manages to embed tidbits of information that leave me as a reader hungry for a little more information. Take spadefoot toads, for instance.

"Dry as Dust"

spadefooot toads

They can deal solo

with dryness, but give them rain

and then: toads explode.

The end notes include a paragraph about each animal, as well as a glossary of list of poetry forms. Ed Young's collage illustrations are perfect, as always!