Attention Teachers! For ideas on how to use Mama Likes to Mambo in the classroom, click here.
Everybody loves to dance, and Mama Likes to Mambo will have you out of your seat and boogying to its crazy beat in no time! This vibrant, hip, and very funny collection of poems will almost certainly make you laugh out loud. The toe-tapping rhythms are perfect for chanting or dancing, while inspired rhymes roll off of the tongue like melted Popsicle juice.
So turn the page and mambo with Mama, wriggle with Wiggy Wigden, and waltz with a whale or two. Whatever happens, we promise that just like everyone else in this book, you’ll have a ball!
Canadian Children's Book Centre
Our Choice Award Starred Selection
Hardcover | 32pp | 12 x 9 hc $19.95 | US$15.95
ISBN: 0-7737-3316-7
Recommended Summer Reading Ontario Elementary Teachers' Federation
REVIEWS:
"Unbelievably, this collection is Helaine Becker's first foray into children's poetry, and, with it, she has created a quirky collection of 16 delightfully energetic poems which will enchant kids and teachers equally.
Her liveliness in Mama Likes to Mambo has a driving get-up-and-go attitude that will give early years classrooms oomph as the students Boogie down rambalam/Really jam rambalam.
Becker joyfully and imaginatively uses language that will have the kids chuckling when reading the poem of Sparkle the Spaniel, who, we find, had an inferior barkle, but fortunately got help for his yelp and became king of the parkle. Becker skillfully captures the sounds and essence that make-up those hot, magical, childhood summer days at the beach, the community pool, or perhaps even in the backyard in "Down by the Bay" when she writes that "The slip-slap,slip-slap of a flip-flop/Sings the song of summer." And, what dinosaur-infatuated child wouldn't love to learn a Christmas poem called "A Jolly Jurassic Christmas" in which
The Stego-chorus sounded swell
When it sang "Noel, Noel"
But as the carolers came to greet him
T-Rex felt he had to eat them!
Without going into every poem, let's just say that they are all engaging, sparkling, inventive, and inspired. If Helaine Becker continues writing poetry, she will surely join the ranks of Canada's most popular and important children's authors."
- CM Magazine
"This is a charming, hip and funny collection of poems
whose upbeat and inspired rhymes beg to be read aloud. The shorter poems, such as "Rumble Bumble Bumblebee," feature inventive wordplay as their main attraction: "roly poly ram-ba-lam / Jambalaya, toast and jam / Hambone, wishbone, Ping-Pong slam…"
Two of the longer poems treat with humour and tenderness
the subjects of toddler tantrums and the all-too-quick (from a parent's point of view) progression of a baby into childhood.
What really distinguishes this book is its illustration. It is interesting to note that while only two of the poems mention animals, the pages are chock-a-block with large, colourful cavorting bears, daisy-umbrella-toting ladybugs, festive dinosaurs and temperamental dragons, to name but a few."
- Libraries and Archives Canada
"Highly Recommended!"
- CM Magazine
