Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz (Children's Literature)
All the verses are epitaphs, and all are more than “gravely humorous.” Twenty-two people are given suitable entries to mark their passing, filled with word play, sly digs, and double entendres. Some are very brief, like that for a Fortune Teller: “Here lies.” Or for an Underwear Salesman: “Our grief/ Was brief.” Others go more deeply into the circumstances of death, like Dairy Farmer Larry LeGow’s fatal error of sitting under a Hereford cow. Food critic, movie star, school teacher, principal, cafeteria lady, even philosopher, all are put to rest with appropriate thoughts. And page by page, Bartram’s acrylic paintings provide naturalistic interpretations of the verses. Some, like that for the Philosopher, recall Rodin. Others, like the Beautician, on a slab being operated on by four medicos, may be a bit macabre. Lots of tongue-in-cheek imagery, which may not be for everyone. Note the tombstones arrayed on the endpapers. 2006, Candlewick Press, $16.99. Ages 6 to 10.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2006 (Vol. 74, No. 14))
Lewis is "dead-on" with this collection of "gravely humorous verses." From school principal to bully, food critic to school cafeteria lady, underwear salesman to soccer player, these "crypt-ic" rhyming quips about the untimely demise of 22 people are wittily morbid and irreverent. The devilishly deadpan, acrylic paintings raise the dead to a higher humor level, infusing liveliness into the scenes and animating the hearse verse with visual puns. For example, six people clad only in black underwear, socks and shoes stand around a photo of the "Underwear Salesman: Our grief / Was brief." Clever endpapers of tombstones for each of the deceased carry out the serio-comic style. Some poems are a bit of a stretch, but nevermind, kids will love the grim-reaper humor. The seven lines describing the pointed end of the "BOOK EDITOR" are illustrated with a bespectacled woman entombed in a casket shaped like an exclamation point with an open book lying on top. "Miss Spelling's / Exclamation points / Were myriad!!! / She lived on / The margin. / And died. / Period." The end. 2006, Candlewick, 32p, $16.99. Category: Picture book/poetry. Ages 6 to 10. Starred Review. © 2006 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.