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Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in working with struggling readers who require additional help in reading fundamentals and comprehension skills development.

Featured books by

Jack Prelutsky

Reading Rockets recommends the following books by Jack Prelutsky.

Awful Ogre's Awful Day
Awful Ogre's Awful Day
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Paul O. Zelinsky
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Independent Reader

Awful Ogre’s day is much like anyone else’s, but with an ogre-ish twist. He uses onion juice as a mouthwash with just a dab on his chin, writes love letters to a delightfully disgusting ogress and more. The clever rhyming verse and dark-lined illustrations are filled with humor and visual jokes that will make this collection of poetry awfully popular.

Dog Days: Rhymes Around the Year
Dog Days: Rhymes Around the Year
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Dyanna Wolcott
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader

Told from a dog’s point of view and viewed from unusual artistic perspectives, these funny, rhythmic and child-like poems bound through a year from January to December.

Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!
Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!
By: Dr. Seuss & Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Lane Smith
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Independent Reader

Rough sketches and ideas by the original Dr. Seuss were completed after his death by a jubilant collaboration between poet Jack Prelutsky and illustrator Lane Smith. Not only will readers glimpse Theodor Geisel's process of creation, they will delight in meeting Miss Bonkers and the Diffendoofer School presented in Seussian text and illustrations that integrate Smith's signature style with familiar Geisel.

If Not for the Cat
If Not for the Cat
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Ted Rand
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Beginning Reader

The essence of animals is evoked in rich language and the short form of haiku poems in this engaging book. Coupled with breathtaking and well composed illustrations, the poems are dramatically placed on double page spreads.

It's Thanksgiving
It's Thanksgiving
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Marylin Hafner
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader

This anthology by well-loved children's poet Jack Prelutsky includes twelve sprightly poems about Thanksgiving, including When Daddy Carves the Turkey, I Ate Too Much, and If Turkeys Thought.

My Parents Think I'm Sleeping
My Parents Think I'm Sleeping
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Yossi Abolafia
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Independent Reader

I'm awake! I'm awake! / I cannot shut my eyes. / I'm unable to sleep, / though I've made many tries… The insomniac in all of us will find plenty of company in this rollicking series of rhymes by the prolific and popular poet, Jack Prelutsky.

Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young
Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Marc Brown
Age Level: 0-3
Reading Level: Pre-Reader

What better way to introduce children to things fantastic or real than through these 200 short poems? Engagingly illustrated, this classic book features a variety of rhymes both old and new.

Scranimals
Scranimals
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Peter Sis
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Independent Reader

On Scranimal Island, there are many curious creatures that may seem familiar, but are really the product of the imagination. Are the critters animal, vegetable, or mineral? Only those who play with words will know for sure!

The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders
The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders
By: Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by: Petra Mathers
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader

Jack Prelutsky is the undisputed master of hilarious verse for the youngest child. And Petra Mathers, has no equal when it comes to bringing anything with fur or feathers uproariously to life. Put the two of them together -and you have a modern classic. Here are poems about people and animals, set in such far-flung places as Minot, Minneapolis, Tuscaloosa, Tucumcari, and the Grand Canyon. Impossible to read only once (and memorized by the third reading), these exuberant poems and irresistible pictures will be loved by children from Miami to Seattle.

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