The Horn Book Guide

LITERATURE

Duggan, Paul

Two Skeletons on the Telephone and Other Poems from Tough City

32 pp. | Lerner/Millbrook | August, 1999 | Trade ISBN 0-7613-1451-2 $$20.40

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Daniel Sylvestre. A ghoul who learned much from "picking people's brains" and skeletons wearing bibs to catch whatever doesn't "stick to their ribs" are a sampling of the deliciously ghastly images found in this light verse collection. Scruffy and edgy in Ralph Steadman fashion, the ink and watercolor illustrations depict Tough City as fun to visit but nowhere you'd want to live (unless you're a rat).

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann