Judy Sierra - Beastly Rhymes to Read After Dark

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Text copyright 2008 by Judy Sierra
Illustrations copyright 2008 by Brian Biggs
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
KNOPF, BORZOI BOOKS, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sierra, Judy.
Beastly rhymes to read after dark / by Judy Sierra ; illustrated by Brian Biggs. 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-375-98331-3
1.

AnimalsJuvenile poetry. 2. Childrens poetry, American. I. Biggs, Brian, ill. II.

Title.
PS3569.I39B43 2008 811.54dc22 2007006815
The illustrations in this book were created using a combination of traditional and digital methods. v3.1
To lovely Maxine J.S.
For my own beasts, Wilson and Elliot! B.B.

A darling baby crocodile Departed from the River Nile, Swam through the Gates of Hercules, And past the great Sargasso Sea, Into the Gulf of Mexico. Gently paddling to and fro, Up a river, up a creek, Growing larger week by week, She settled in the loathsome pool Beneath the bathroom of your school. When next you find you have to go, Look first, and wave, and say, Hello! Be sure to flash a friendly smile And greet the darling crocodile, For as I told you once before, Shes not a baby anymore. Beneath the waves, I heard him moan A great big squid whos all alone.

He needs a hug, declared an eel. That eel became the squids next meal. The giant squid sighed, Life is bleak. A friendly tuna kissed his beak. The squid said, Mmm! Your kiss is yummy. Kiss me from inside my tummy.

So it went for months and years. The bloated beast shed bitter tears. Ill tell you why that squids so blue: You cant have friends and eat them, too.

Annies babies like to bite. Annies babies howl all night. In the daytime, theyre much calmer.

They are werewolves, like their mama.

Oh where, oh where can my kitty cat be? She promised to go to the pet show with me. And all of the other nice pets will be there, Like Beths barracuda, and Gabes grizzly bear, Arts anaconda, and Kates killer bee. But where, oh where can my kitty cat be? Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Who is haunting the zoo? Theres a phantom flamingo, A windigo dingo, An elephant skeleton, too, A mummified moth, The wraith of a sloth, And a walloping were-kangaroo, A gory gorilla, And Franken-chinchilla, And most of the ghost of a gnu. It happens each fall, As they creep and they crawl, And the animals all Trick-or-treat at the zoo. My next-door neighbor, Hilda Hitchen, Kept two leopards in her kitchen Who, when Hilda wasnt looking, Taught themselves the art of cooking.

Thursday, Hilda came home late And found a heaping, steaming plate Of Spam with jam, and ham with mustard, Dumplings, pies, and chocolate custard. All appeared as if by magic, Yet the outcome could be tragic. When shed eaten every scrap, I am so stuffed! dear Hilda yapped. You are, indeed! the leopards roared And slid her through the oven door.

MENU
Beetle brain broth Barbecued moth Peppered piranha puree Grasshopper gizzard Liquefied lizard Scorpion stinger souffl Wolverine waffle Ferret falafel Fricasseed skin of a snake Skunk scat supreme Head lice ice cream Chocolate tarantula cake A hungry tapeworm deftly hooked A pork chop (only partly cooked) And rode into the cozy gut Of nasty Norman Noodlebutt. The worm would feast on Normans dinner; Norm, predictably, grew thinner, Till, suspecting that he might Be subject to a parasite, He ate a stick of dynamite.

Thatll teach it, Norman gloated, Smiled with pleasurethen exploded.
Moral: Many lovely lives are ended By consequences unintended.