World Rat Day: Poems About Real Holidays You've Never Heard Of by J. Patrick Lewis and Anna Raff

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1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lewis, J. Patrick. World Rat Day: Poems About Real Holidays You’ve Never Heard Of. Ill. by Anna Raff. Somerville, MA, Candlewick Press: 2013. ISBN: 9780763654023

2. PLOT SUMMARY

World Rat Day is a collection of holiday poems. However, these aren’t poems about Christmas or Thanksgiving. Instead, they’re poems about Dragon Appreciation Day, Frog Jumping Day, and Ohio Sheep Day - “holidays you should be celebrating,” but most likely are not. In fact, this is a collection of poems about holidays that most people have probably never heard of, and never would have heard of if Lewis hadn’t written these hilarious poems in celebration of them.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The poems in this collection are just as unique and funny as the holidays they’re written about. There are 26 poems in all, placed in chronological order beginning with “Happy Mew Year for Cats Day” on January 2nd and ending with “Chocolate-Covered Anything Day” on December 16th.

The poems in this collection are written in all different styles, and Lewis seems to choose a style for each poem that is most fitting for the subject he’s writing about. He writes some in free verse, like “Eight Table Manners For Dragons,” the poem for Dragon Appreciation Day. Others have a rhyme scheme, like “Why I’m Late For School,” the poem for National Hippo Day. The poem “A Flamingo,” written for Pink Flamingo Day, has pink words in the shape of a flamingo. The five poems written for Limerick Day are all written in the normal meter and rhyme scheme (AABBA) of limericks. What better style would there be for a poem like Ohio Sheep Day than a straightforward one-liner? To create a lengthy poem in rhyme would not fit such a random day nearly as well as simply saying “No one will ever forget Ewe.”

Lewis carefully chooses the sounds for his poems, and he uses alliteration often. In “A Bulldog Is” for Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day, he says, “A sieve for the slobber / A soloist (grunts) / The sumo of canines / The semi of runts.” This repetition of sounds emphasizes that stanza. (and the amount of slobber that comes from a bulldog). Lewis also uses vivid imagery to show his readers what he is writing about. He refers to fireflies in his poem for Firefly Day as “ELECTRIFIED CONFETTI.” Imagine each tiny piece of confetti as a firefly instead. What a wondrous celebration to have the sky filled with electrified confetti! For National Skunk Day, he says, “If the skunk did not exist, / Then the skunk would not be mist.” When the word “mist” is read instead of “missed,” the reader’s mind automatically pictures the stinky mist that is the very reason the skunk would not be missed.

All of Lewis’s poems evoke emotions of humor and lightheartedness in the reader. In his poem “Jack A.” for Mule Day, he humorously describes the mule as a stubborn, short-tempered animal, and leaves us laughing with the final lines, “And if, of course, you call him Jack, / Don’t mention his last name.” In “What the worm Knows” for Worm Day, the worms receive the humorous, but sound, advice to “Stay away from / The Robin ‘hood.” Lewis does an excellent job writing factually, but humorously, about each subject.

The illustrations, created by Anna Raff, are bright and colorful - just like the poems they’re depicting. They are simple and draw the reader’s eyes directly to the silliness of the subject at hand. From the hare sitting upright in the dragon’s bowl of soup for Dragon Appreciation, to the pieces of fudge being hurled at the cobra for Yell “Fudge” at the Cobras in North America Day, to the heart-shaped box filled with chocolate covered ants for Chocolate-covered Anything Day, Raff’s illustrations are unique and clever.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

From SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL - “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.”

From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY - “Raff’s loose washes with ink details exude personality and humor (a skunk’s photo shoot has her posing next to a bottle of “Eau de Eeeew!”) in this gleefully silly crowd-pleaser.”

5. CONNECTIONS

Gather other books written by Patrick J. Lewis to read such as:

• Poem-mobiles: Crazy Car Poems. ISBN 0375866906

• Please Bury Me In The Library. ISBN 0152163875
• Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs. ISBN 1580892604

Gather other books illustrated by Anna Raff to read such as:

• Sylvia’s Spinach: ISBN 0983661545
• Things That Float And Things That Don’t. ISBN 0823431762

Invent your own silly holiday and write a poem in honor of it. Draw an illustration for the poem and share it with the class.

Choose one poem from the book and conduct further research on the holiday and its roots.