Garbage Delight: Another Helping. Dennis Lee. Illustrated by Maryann Kovalski. Toronto, ON: Key Porter Books, 2002. 48 pp., cloth, $19.95. ISBN 1-55263-470-1. Subject Headings: Children's poetry, Canadian (English). Nonsense verses, Canadian (English). Preschool-grade 6 / Ages 4-11. Review by Lynne McKechnie. *** /4

A new and revised edition of a favourite title from award winning, Toronto Poet Laureate Dennis Lee. Garbage Delight: Another Helping delivers on its promise, serving up twenty-five of the poems from the original work published by Macmillan in 1977 plus fourteen new ones to tantalize and delight young readers. As can be seen in the following poem, the new additions retain the familiar flavour of Lee’s verse with ear pleasing rhymes, strong rhythms that beg to be chanted and Canadian place names and terms.

Percy

Percy was a pixie,
A pixie of renown,
He played his little pixie pipe
All around the town.

He played a pixie hornpipe,
He played a pixie lay,
And people came from miles around

To hear the pixie play.

For Percy played it roundabout,
And Percy played it square,
And Percy played the stories
That were jostling in the air.

Along the streets of Kensington,
And in the Beaches too,
In Chinatown, and Cabbagetown,
He played the whole day through.

 

     Maryann Kovalski’s full colour, pencil crayon and watercolour illustrations complement the text well. Animals, most frequently small racoons (who else raids urban garbage cans?) are the “children” in these pictures. Kovalski is particularly successful in evoking the emotions and feeling of Lee’s verse, reflecting it in the facial expressions and stance of the characters.

     Do not be tempted to throw away the earlier edition when the new one arrives at your library as there are some important and unexpected differences between the two. Seventeen of the poems from the original Garbage Delight do not appear in Garbage Delight: Another Helping, including some of my favourites such as “Inspector Dogbone,” “Smelly Fred,” and “Bloody Bill.” Two of the twenty-five poems that are common to both only appear on the endpapers of the newer book. And Lee, or his editor/publisher, has made changes to fourteen poems. Some of the changes are very small, involving, for example, punctuation, formatting or a single word. Children are unlikely to notice the differences, except perhaps for the change in one word in the final chorus of “Garbage Delight,” as this is the poem in the collection that many will already know by heart. Most of the changes serve to refine and improve poems. The “dancer” in “What Will You Be?” becomes a “wrestler” in the newer book, a change that increases both appeal and humour. Reading aloud the following verse from “The Tiniest Man in the Washing Machine” clearly demonstrates the impact of Lee’s polishing:

     Frank Newfeld’s illustrations, though less likely to appeal to today’s children, are very significant in the early development of the Canadian picture book (see Judith Saltman and Gail Edwards, Towards a History of Design in Canadian Children’s Illustrated Books, in Canadian Children’’s Literature n.107, Fall 2002, 10-41). Used together, both editions of Garbage Delight provide a pedagogically rich opportunity for children to explore the worlds of illustration, writing, poetry and publication.

     Well bound and well printed, this book is aesthetically appealing and durable enough to withstand heavy classroom and library use. The size of the illustrations and length of the text make it suitable for both group sharing and individual reading. While there is not a table of contents like the one in the earlier edition which facilitated the retrieval of individual poems, the new illustrations and layout increase the shelf appeal and browsability of Garbage Delight: Another Helping.

Highly Recommended.

Lynne McKechnie is an Associate Professor who teaches children’s literature and library services for children in the Graduate Program of Library and Information Science at the University of Western Ontario.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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