I’m a big fan of Jack Prelutsky’s poetry for kids, and the combination of this collection of wacky poems featuring portmanteau words with the equally zany collage illustrations by Carin Berger served as inspiration for our Cool After School program on November 3.
I introduced the kids to the idea of portmanteau words by reading Humpty Dumpty’s description of them from Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll. Then I read them selected poems from Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant: And Other Poems and showed them the fabulous illustrations.
Carin Berger’s mixed-media illustrations for the book feature vintage print advertisements, cut-print media, and interesting paper textures. I collected similar advertising images and some paper choices and turned the kids loose. They had fun coming up with new portmanteau words, such as scorpowrench, clockathon, toasterbot, scorpoclock, housebot, and victroladog!
