Absolutely Wild

The publisher first saw Kim Cunningham's artwork - and her father's clever and witty poetry - at an exhibition of New Hampshire artists near the company's warehouse in Peterborough. With two young children and bookcases brimming over with alphabet, animal, nonsense, and every other kind of children's book, it takes a lot to impress him. This work did; even an amateur could see at a glance that here was the Real Thing - both the rhymes and the images.

The verses by her father, a New York copywriter, are original, catchy, and sophisticated (or as sophisticated as you can get writing about vultures, gibbons, giraffes, and gnus).