"Button Up!" By: Alice Schertle

Button Up! is a fun book of poems. The poems all rhyme which gives them a fun rhythm, and makes it a quick read! In addition to a little rhythm the poems are all told from the perspective of an inanimate object. For example, some poems are told by shoelaces while others are told by a pair of new shoes. One of my favorite poems in this book is called, Hand-Me-Down Sweatshirt.
The illustrations in this book are very colorful. The illustration size and placement varies for each of the poems. For example, one of the poems has many little illustrations that are interspersed between the various stanzas. On other pages the illustration takes up the whole page. The illustrations were done with watercolors. In addition to the fun illustrations I really liked how the titles were displayed. Every title has the inanimate object bolded in color. So if the poem is told by a swimsuit, then the word swimsuit is bolded in color in the title. The end pages even fit the fun colorful theme of this book with purple butterflies on blue fading to yellow paper.
I thought this book was very cute. It is definitely geared to a younger audience. Kids from kindergarten to 2nd grade would really enjoy this book. Although the poems in this book are geared to a younger audience I could see using a few of these poems to show how poetry can be written from various perspectives. I'm not sure that older students would enjoy this book being in the classroom library all year round, but I think during a poetry unit it would b a good book to have in the classroom library.