JonArno Lawson is the author of two books of poetry for adults:
Love is an Observant Traveler and
Inklings, as well as a contributor the
The Chechens: A Handbook edited by Amjad Jaimoukha. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife and two children.
The man in the Moon-Fixer's Mask is his first book for children.
Sherwin Tjia is a Montreal-based poet and painter. He is the author of four books: Gentle Fictions, Pedigree Girls, Pedigree Girls Forever, and The World is a Heartbreaker. The Man in the Moon-Fixer's Mask is the first book he has illustrated. He is currently working on a pseudohaiku collection, My Girlfriends Have Always Been Tomboys.
Grade 5-8–Unusual creatures, a fallen moon, and a girl searching through her soccer-socks sack for a matching pair are just some of the subjects in this collection of nonsense rhymes. Many of the selections focus on animals, real and imagined, including a frog who meets a heron in the wood and realizes that ...his prognosis/is not very good, a snake that kisses with a double-pronged tongue, and The Hippopossum (Sleepy, stocky, awkward, awesome–/He'll eat anything you toss him). A few of the poems focus on humans, including five-year-old Ella-Bella, who must wash the dishes every morning, and Vincent the Vanisher, who ...knows how to vanish/but not how to come back. Some offerings showcase a world turned on its ear: The Itibar of Ilm looked in a mirror–And there he saw the Ilm of Itibar./'Is that me?' (The fear he underwent!)/'Me that is,' he heard, and felt content. Black-and-white ink drawings appear throughout, reflecting the humorous tone of the verses. While the collection is a bit uneven and some of the poems seem geared more toward adults, most are appropriate for young readers. An additional purchase.–Kristen Oravec, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Strongsville, OH
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