Books

Kirkus Reviews

Enlisting the aid of Snow, creator of the modern classic, How Dogs Really Work (1993), Perry addresses a dozen common problems, from losing a shoe to carrying multiple packages in the rain, from walking a pet giraffe to cleaning between one's toes.  Most of her solutions involve contraptions such as the "Maximumbrella," or the "Acme Super Spider Spotter" - the exceptions being "Veggies Be Gone," a spray that sends vegetables shooting out of the shopping cart, "Filbert's Footsie Floss", and the energetic crew of "Stink Stoppers," specialists in removing animal odors.  "When pumas are putrid, we powder their paws,/Once eagles have eaten, we clean off their claws,/We bathe every bobcat, perfume every pen./We wipe down each walrus again and again."  Snow renders each Rube Goldberg-esque device in loving, baroque detail, and shows it in action too, wielded by smiling, satisfied cartoon customers.  After children finish chortling, they may be tempted to design their own thingamajigs in the wake of this droll debut.  December 15, 2002

Publishers Weekly

Snow's (How Dogs Really Work!) Rube Goldberg-style drawings combined with spirited verse from newcomer Perry give this collection a rocket-powered burst of offbeat humor. A dozen essential inventions snort and clank almost audibly in the background as Perry describes them in sturdy verse.  Each poem appears on a double-page spread, with the invention and its happy users festooning the margins.  "The Sure-Footed Shoe Finder"  locates lost shoes ""You won't miss the school bus!  Now aren't you relieved?"); one can simply spray "Veggies Be Gone!," a "produce repellant," on a shopping basket, and "Its vapors prevent any artichoke heart/or endive from lodging itself in your cart."  A team of "Stink Stoppers" descends upon zoos to deodorize the animals ("Each creature's odor is pretty distinct,/but we fight those fumes until all are ex-stinked") and the "Crumbunny," a brush-nosed, long-tongued pink creature with rabbit ears and a cottontail, snarfs up crumbs in untidy beds ("Have your cake and eat it, too!").  Perry's doggerel switches meters for variety, but stays steady within each, and the rhymes bounce along.  Children will embrace these sweetly subversive verses, and so, despite themselves, will their parents.  December 23, 2002

And coming in February 2007, from Atheneum....

"The Snack Smasher and other reasons why it's not my fault!"

A collection of poems about some scoundrels, scalawags, and dastardly deed doers. This bevy of mischievous creatures are out to wreak havoc in kid's lives.

And coming soon, from Atheneum...."The Bickleby's Birdbath"

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