Awful Ogre Running Wild (SIGNED COPY)
by: Jack Prelutsky and Paul O. Zelinsky

Hardcover. NY, Greenwillow, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 40 pages, color illustrations by Paul Zelinsky. SIGNED BY BOTH AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR. The huge but rather childlike character featured in Prelutsky and Zelinsky's Awful Ogre's Awful Day (2001) returns in a new volume of light verse accomplanied by full-page and double-page illustrations. Taking place during the one-eyed ogre's summer vacation, the first-person poems run the gamut from somewhat gross ("Awful Ogre Has Insomnia") to droll ("Awful Ogre Attends a Concert") to tenderhearted ("Awful Ogre Pays a Visit") to sublime ("Awful Ogre Goes Dragon-Watching"). Prelutsky shows his sure sense of rhythm and rhyme as well as his child-pleasing sense of humor in this series of 17 clearly written poems. Most appear on double-page spreads, accompanied by large ink-and-watercolor illustrations that reflect the tone of the verse. Highlighting the barely controlled chaos of this amiable ogre's world, the pictures create a visually imaginative setting where anything can happen and, in the fun-to-discover details, something often does.