How Elegant the Elephant: Poems About Animals and Insects

K-Gr 2–Comprised of 60 poems gathered from Hoberman’s decades-long body of work, as well as eight new poems, this collection celebrates the acclaimed poet’s lifelong love of animals and bugs. While a few selections feel a bit dated, overall the poetry is lighthearted and full of lively wordplay. It is Frazee’s clever illustrations, however, that really steal the spotlight. The art places the bugs and animals at a retro, mid-century hotel with a zebra concierge and a staff of squirrels. Rendered in black pencil and watercolor, the artwork simultaneously complements each poem and engages the observant reader in amusing subplots set in various locales in and around the hotel. For example, alongside the poem “So Many Kinds of Animals,” Frazee depicts a host of hotel guests in a yoga class; on the next page, a poem about a donkey is paired with an illustration of the underappreciated animal toting a bundle of yoga mats on its back.