World Rat Day

From the Children’s Poet Laureate comes a year-round ode to wacky holidays just begging to be celebrated.

Nobody should ever forget Ewe on Ohio Sheep Day (July 14). No mata mata how hard they may try on World Turtle Day (May 23). If you’ve never heard of Dragon Appreciation Day, International Cephalopod Awareness Day, or Yell “Fudge!” at the Cobras in North America Day, it’s not because they don’t exist, it’s simply that they needed someone to spread the word. Luckily, the fantastically zany poems of J. Patrick Lewis and Anna Raff’s equally hilarious illustrations have memorialized these holidays forever. So get out your calendars — from Happy Mew Year for Cats Day to Chocolate-Covered Anything Day, World Rat Day (April 4) calls for a year-round celebration.

“Raff's loose washes with ink details exude personality and humor...in this gleefully silly crowd-pleaser. --Publishers Weekly Funny from start to finish, these superbly crafted poems and inventive illustrations celebrate the extraordinary, odd, and seldom heard of holidays that the elementary-school crowd will love. Raff's intelligent artwork adds to the lighthearted play with many surprises...The entire book is such fun that children will will want to shout, "It's J. Patrick Lewis Day!" --School Library Journal Those who annually circle "Cow Appreciation Day" or "Ohio Sheep Day" on their calendars will welcome this literary recognition, but even those who don't keep "Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day" holy will enjoy the poems as witty nonsense. Highly amusing anthropomorphized creatures rendered in ink lines and washes celebrate on white single- or double-page spreads, and sometimes there are pretty practical curriculum connections, such as "Limerick Day" (May 12) and "International Cephalopod Awareness Day" (October 8). Happy reading and a happy "Yell 'Fudge!' at the Cobras in North America Day" to all! --Booklist The poems are lots of fun to read aloud, with twists and turns, rhyme and rhythm, and form variations from couplets, to concrete, to verse and limerick with inner rhymes and invented words. Lewis' poems are delightful... --Library Media Connection The Children's Poet Laureate takes a tongue-in-cheek look at some of the weird and wacky holidays that never quite make it onto commercially printed calendars. --Kirkus Reviews Obscure but entertaining holidays get their own poem, each one funny, playful, and even instructive...Raff's ink washes and drawings feature animals with lots of personality. --The Horn Book Unofficial as the holidays may be, they'll provide plenty of curricular occasions and some goofy reading aloud, and kids may leap on the notion of creating and celebrating their own invented holidays. --Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books With its fun, puns, whimsical animal watercolors and general goofiness, this hilarious work recalls Shel Silverstein. --New York Post These 26 selections ... will tickle the funny bones of even those who are poem-phobic. Coupling the words of Children's Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis with the loosely composed cartoons of Anna Raff ramps up the fun. Everywhere you look, there's one more raffish rat doing nonsensical (and occasionally naughty) things. --The Washington Post”

Raff’s loose washes with ink details exude personality and humor...in this gleefully silly crowd-pleaser.
—Publishers Weekly

Funny from start to finish, these superbly crafted poems and inventive illustrations celebrate the extraordinary, odd, and seldom heard of holidays that the elementary-school crowd will love. Raff’s intelligent artwork adds to the lighthearted play with many surprises...The entire book is such fun that children will will want to shout, “It’s J. Patrick Lewis Day!”
—School Library Journal

Those who annually circle “Cow Appreciation Day” or “Ohio Sheep Day” on their calendars will welcome this literary recognition, but even those who don’t keep “Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day” holy will enjoy the poems as witty nonsense. Highly amusing anthropomorphized creatures rendered in ink lines and washes celebrate on white single- or double-page spreads, and sometimes there are pretty practical curriculum connections, such as “Limerick Day” (May 12) and “International Cephalopod Awareness Day” (October 8). Happy reading and a happy “Yell ‘Fudge!’ at the Cobras in North America Day” to all!
—Booklist

The poems are lots of fun to read aloud, with twists and turns, rhyme and rhythm, and form variations from couplets, to concrete, to verse and limerick with inner rhymes and invented words. Lewis’ poems are delightful...
—Library Media Connection

The Children’s Poet Laureate takes a tongue-in-cheek look at some of the weird and wacky holidays that never quite make it onto commercially printed calendars.
—Kirkus Reviews

Obscure but entertaining holidays get their own poem, each one funny, playful, and even instructive...Raff’s ink washes and drawings feature animals with lots of personality.
—The Horn Book

Unofficial as the holidays may be, they’ll provide plenty of curricular occasions and some goofy reading aloud, and kids may leap on the notion of creating and celebrating their own invented holidays.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

With its fun, puns, whimsical animal watercolors and general goofiness, this hilarious work recalls Shel Silverstein.
—New York Post

These 26 selections ... will tickle the funny bones of even those who are poem-phobic. Coupling the words of Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis with the loosely composed cartoons of Anna Raff ramps up the fun. Everywhere you look, there’s one more raffish rat doing nonsensical (and occasionally naughty) things.
—The Washington Post

J. Patrick Lewis has written more than seventy books for children and is the current Children’s Poet Laureate. He lives in Ohio, where, between author visits at schools, he weeps copious tears that his grandchildren live so far away.

Anna Raff is an award-winning illustrator based in New York City where there are reportedly four rats per human resident. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and American Illustration, among others. World Rat Day is her first book with Candlewick Press.

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