14. I'm still here in the bathtub

#14 I’m still here in the bathtub

Author: Alan Katz

Illustrator: David Catrow

Publisher: Scholastic Inc, 2003

28 Pages

Poetry

This book caught my attention because when I was a child I always liked to play in the bathtub and there were times when I would stay in the bathtub so long that the water would turn cold. This book is filled with several different poems that are sung to common songs such as: B-I-N-G-O, Take me out to the ballgame, the wheels on the bus, and many more. The songs are all sung by a toddler and several different scenarios he found himself in like babysitting his brother, eating his vegetables, and his aunt who loves to squeeze and kiss him.

            The illustrations in this book are rendered in water colors, colored pencils, and ink. The lines in the pictures show that the illustrations were drawn with colored pencils and help bring attention to smaller details. Each of the illustrations takes up the entire space and there is no negative space used in the illustrations. The colors are very bright yellows, reds, oranges creating the mood for each of the poems to be sung. The illustrations have a lot of flow and freedom and are not constricted by lines.

            This book is appropriate for first through fourth grade. The tunes of the songs used for each poem is familiar to children of younger ages who have grown up singing the songs. The book could be used in a writing lesson to generate new ideas for the students to take a song they grew up singing and writing a poem to the tune of their favorite song from their childhood. Some of the poems can be used in a language arts lesson to have the students identify prefixes and suffixes added on to root words. This book has no awards or honors, but is very fun to sing the songs to tunes that are from early years in life.