Poetry Friday: The Carnival of the Animals

Camille Saint-Saens's The Carnival of the Animals. Jack Prelutsky. Illustrated by Mary GrandPre. 2010. Random House. 40 pages.


Inspired by Camille Saint-Saens' "The Carnival of the Animals", Jack Prelutsky has written a new collection of verses. In the accompanying CD, readers get the opportunity to listen to the poems and to the musical pieces that inspired those poems. (If you prefer an uninterrupted introduction to "The Carnival of the Animals," it is the last track of the CD.)

From the jacket,

The Carnival of the Animals has long been recommended as a playful way to introduce preschoolers to classical music. Children will enjoy acting out the animals roles as they listen to the music and the verses.

Poems include, "The Lion," "Rooster and Hens," "The Donkeys of the Wild," "The Tortoise," "Elephants," "Kangaroos," "Aquarium," "Personages with Long Ears," "The Cuckoo," "Birds," "Pianists," "Fossils," "The Swan." (Also an Introduction and Finale).

My favorite poem?

Personages with Long Ears

They love to loudly bray and bray,
And bray away both night and day.
Determined that their brays be heard,
They're both obnoxious and absurd.

They bray when it is calm and warm,
They bray throughout a raging storm.
To fill the world with coarse hee-haws
(Sometimes without the briefest pause)
Appears to be their only cause.

© Becky Laney of Young Readers