The Horn Book Guide

INTERMEDIATE FICTION

Herrick, Steven

Naked Bunyip Dancing

201 pp. | Front | April, 2008 | Trade ISBN 978-1-59078-499-0 $16.95

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Beth Norling. Herrick's impressionistic poems add up to a portrait of a good-natured Australian sixth-grade class and their Bob Dylan–singing, bell bottoms–wearing teacher. Even those pieces concerning familiar kidstuff delineate carefully nuanced characters. Cumulatively, slyly, the poems reveal the kids' growth and the developing relationships in the classroom. Norling's drawings in the manner of a twelve-year-old illustrator have quirky, cartoonlike flair.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2008