We Go Together! A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse by Calef Brown

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Calef Brown is a poet and a painter and a storyteller with a crazy imagination. Along with Douglas Florian (my reviews of his books here), these two poet-painters are staples in April when I celebrate National Poetry Month here. Brown is the creator of Dragon, Robot, Gatorbunny, a super fun how-to-draw-doodle book that is now also an eBook that allows you to doodle directly when you touch the screen of your device! Brown is also the author of the classic,  Polka Bats and Octopus Slacks. So, it is quite happily that I review his newest book, We Go Together! A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse, 18 wonderful poems in a small trim size, perfect for giving to the one you love...

Most of the images I found from We Go Together! A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse include the verse as well as the art, so rather than talk about the poems, I'll let you read a few! Brown gets things moving with "Let's Go!" 


Next comes the title poem "We Go Together," one of the greatest odes to friendship I've read. Brown has a gift for subtle, surprising rhymes, as seen at the end of "We Go Together" when he writes, 

Loyal amigos
with infinite sums
of friendship, affection,
and pure camaraderie.
We won the buddy lottery.


While I love every poem in We Go Together! A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse, I think my favorite may be "Snow Globes," both for the lovely images Brown evokes and the amazing rhyming, including the way he links the words "diorama" and "llama."


Brown ends  We Go Together! A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse with "Your Smile," a sweet poem tempered with a bit of silliness that is a lovely way to wrap up this wonderful little book.


Actually, the best way to wrap up  We Go Together! A Curious Selection of Affectionate Verse is the little verse on the back cover, with which I will end my review:

We go together
like fingers and thumbs
Basses and drums
Pastries and crumbs.




More books by written and illustrated Calef Brown, and a few just illustrated by him...

Polka Bats and Octopus Slacks          Dragon, Robot, Gatorbunny 

 










Source: Review Copy

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