Review for There Once Was a Man From The USA-50 State Limericks by Joshua Kraushar

There Once Was a Man From The USA-50 State Limericks by Joshua Kraushar illustrated by Victoria Weiss

Paperback: 72 pages

Publisher: Outskirts Press (October 21, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1478721073

ISBN-13: 978-1478721079

Summary:

The 50 states of limericks! There Once Was A Man From the U.S.A. is a book of limericks about each of the fifty states in alphabetical order. The book contains several illustrations from the talented Victoria Rose Weiss. Many of the limericks have very little connection with the states mentioned but some are directly related to several of the others. Although it may seem simplistic to use the same rhyme scheme, it turned out to be much harder than one would think. Try rhyming words with Massachusetts, (not that's something that you would normally do) and you might find it more difficult than you would imagine. If you are a teen or a geographically challenged adult who needs an easy way to remember the fifty states, this may be the book for you. This book may not be appropriate for young children and is not geography book but is designed to be funny and quirky.

Bio:

This is Joshua Kraushar's first attempt at writing a teen/adult book. The author is a retired high school Social Studies teacher who recently ended his career of thirty-five years. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and is working as a tour guide in New York City. Victoria Rose Weiss is a talented young illustrator who was Joshua's former high school student in Ridgefield, New Jersey.

Review:

There Once Was A Man From the U.S.A is a book of limericks about all of the 50 states. It is supposed to be for children/teen/adults. When receiving this book it was in the hope of having a good tool to use in the classroom. Very mistaken.

The book has very little to do with the 50 states, in fact, nothing at all. The limericks are not cute, or even funny, but they are crude. Alabama has a sorority girl who kills a man with a hammer. This was on the first page. Not a great opener, had to hide the book from the kids.

Adults may appreciate the authors humor but majority of people will not. Definitely not a book for children or even teens. The illustrations by Victoria Rose are well done but she didn't have enough illustrations to fill the book so the publisher left those pages blank. The book looks incomplete.

Though I applaud the authors effort to branch out from teaching and to create a book about social studies, he would have been better to focus more on social studies for teens and to make the book beneficial in that area instead of trying to make it funny, which probably matches the authors sense of humor. He relayed his humor well, but to the wrong audience. The book should be relabeled for adults and should be redesigned for that purpose.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this book.