It's a pleasure to have a new poet and illustrator dance upon the scene. Berger pairs inventive wordplay with equally inventive cut-paper collages. She plays with typefaces, layout, colors, and, of course, language. The lines form a whirlpool in "Very Best of Friends": "Wiley Croc and Goldie Fish were very best of friends/Until the sad and bitter day with which this story ends/While swimming slowly in the swamp/Old Wiley gave a yawn/He sucked poor Goldie in his mouth and/GULP!/His friend was gone." The images remain both fresh and accessible to young readers: "Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, lollipop moon/The sun's gone away and none too soon/For dreamy-time flowers are waiting to bloom/So come to me, come to me/Lullaby moon." This title has the verve of the very best concrete poetry books like Paul B. Janeczko's A Poke in the I (Candlewick, 2001) and the energy of the very best paper illustrations, such as Amy Walrod's work in Philemon Sturges's The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) (Dutton, 1999). This is one ".

super fine/Out celebrating all the time." book. - School Library Journal "Channeling Hieronymus Bosch, but with a smile, newcomer Berger services her collection of urbane nonsense verse with cut-paper collages featuring cone-nosed, stick-limbed creatures, most resembling insects in wildly variegated garb." - Kirkus Reviews ".the imagination at work here marks this author-artist as one to watch." - Publisher's Weekly.