Hungry for the Arts: Poems to Chomp On

Written by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming

Illustrated by Peggy Collins

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

978-1-55455-466-9

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

March 2022

From the creative team that brought us Hungry for Math: Poems to Munch On and Hungry for Science: Poems to Crunch On comes a new book of lively poetry based in the arts of drama, music, dance and visual arts. 

From Hungry for the Arts: Poems to Chomp On by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming, illus. by Peggy Collins

Colour-coded to organize the poetry which can span several pages–orange for dance, green for drama, turquoise for music and purple for visual arts–authors Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori-Sherritt-Fleming take young readers onto the stage and into the studio to find ways to express themselves. They are encouraged to...

Munch on motion

Chomp on play.

Chew on chants.

Eat ARTS all day!

And to...

Choose buffets or a-la-carte.

Music,

  dance,

    drama, 

      art!

From Hungry for the Arts: Poems to Chomp On by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming, illus. by Peggy Collins

There's the poem called "Those Cats Can Play" which has a quartet of felines improvising with a variety of notes and "A Little More Forte" in which an elephant and a house mouse must learn about forte, piano, decrescendo and crescendo. In the dance poems, identified by the orange dot in the corner of the first page, some dinosaurs disco, tango and hip hop their way across the dance floor ("Dinosaur Dance Floor") while in "The Whammy-Roo" a child in a wheelchair introduces her friend to her new dance.

From Hungry for the Arts: Poems to Chomp On by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming, illus. by Peggy Collins

In the drama poems that include  "When I'm" and "A Dramatic Ride" kids try out movements, improvise with costumes and perform, imaging themselves as anything from a roller coaster to a tiger and a pirate. And the poems based in the visual arts are just as colourful and entertaining, encouraging young readers to think about textures and shapes and create from found objects. In the thirteen poems in the book, Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming introduce children to new terms–a snappy glossary summarizes this new vocabulary–and encourage them to explore the different art forms with some playful poems that may or may not rhyme.

From Hungry for the Arts: Poems to Chomp On by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming, illus. by Peggy Collins

Peggy Collins, whose book Harley the Hero recently won the Forest of Reading's Blue Spruce Award, brings the joy of making art to the page. Her own artwork bursts from the story in an explosion of life through her use of colour and shape and line. There are no wallflowers in Hungry for the Arts. Every poem is animated with animals and children, robots and activity. As the creators make art, through their singing, their dancing, their performance and their displays, readers will learn from the words and the play.

We've munched on poems, crunched on poems and now we get to chomp on them too. With the rhythm of the music, the step of a light foot, a stroke of a brush and a flourish on a stage, Kari-Lynn Winters, Lori Sherritt-Fleming and Peggy Collins take us into the places where children get creative and express themselves in whatever art form speaks to them, and we're there to applaud all their efforts.