Help Baby Walrus by Ilia Tversky – Book Review

Help Baby Walrus is an out and out children’s poetry book doesn’t matter how much it offers in terms of wisdom, knowledge and deeper teachings in addition to its essential qualities – being funny, rhyming, rhythmic and fabulous for kids who love reading about animals, their funny acts and their insanely moves. Help Baby Walrus is a collection of poems that kids will love reading. It also consists of images that match the descriptions in poems and that makes the reading experience for kids even better, wider and greater because they will be able to visualise what they read. And believe me, kids love doing that. In addition, those parents who are worried about their kids busy with TV cartoons can actually offer them something the same – cartoon-like sketches coupled with wonderful poetry. Isn’t that cool?

Written by Ilia Tversky, this collection, Help Baby Walrus, offers many poems and all offer different themes. Animals dancing and singing, showing their wit and grit, talking on the phone and befriending human beings… Moreover, as the author comes from Israel and also spent a good part of his life in Russia, kids in India will have many opportunities to learn about new things that they seldom find in children’s fiction written by Indian authors. For instance:

Strange bird, Yvette,

For breakfast had a biscuit

And an omelette filled with cheese

And cucumber and millet.

Not only enjoyable but also inspiring for many kids who don’t go for healthy eating options! Parents can always take examples from something that kids love and inspire them to eat healthily – do you remember the scene from Spiderman (Maguire) where he tells children to eat a lot of vegetables if they want to become like Spiderman? Yeah, like that…

Talking about the relevance and use of this poetry collection by Ilia Tversky, one will find out that modern-day children readers will find it more relevant and syncing with the time we live in. Animals play chess, text each other, cook and dine together, go to parties and do things that are more or less modern, digital and even contemporary in many other ways. I will add another example here and you will find what I am hinting at:

Our lovely, slender crocodile

Texted David, ‘Be there in a while.

Please prepare a bath for me,

And together we will take some tea.’

Above all, the poems truly become even more interesting because the author has decided to offer full-page graphics that go with the theme of the poems. You can find interesting sketches and paintings of a crocodile reading newspaper, animals wearing human clothes, talking on the phone, driving, brushing their teeth, enjoying, playing various games and so on… and therefore, we can conclude that this book not only offers good content but also becomes visually satisfying for children readers.

Ending with tone and tenure, the collection of poems is written in simple language and kids will find it moderate to read and comprehend. Nothing will bother them too much because the author has taken care of its being user-friendly in terms of diction, length and impact. A learning opportunity for kids that will not only entertain them but also boost their thinking, reading habits and love for books (and literature). You can get this book in high-quality print or digital, a Kindle E-book, edition from Amazon India:

Click here to buy from Amazon India

Review by Manish for Indian Book Critics