Jon Agee has a new book called Orangutan Tongs, and the subtitle is a perfect description -- Poems to Tangle Your Tongue. I found myself wanting to read them out loud. Here's the beginning of a real tongue twister:
A three-toed tree toad tried to tie/ A two-toed tree toad's shoe. / But tying two-toed shoes is hard /For three-toed toads to do, /Since three-toed shoes each have three toes, /And two-toed shoes have two.
It goes on from there. I think my favorite, though, is "Purple-Paper People." I just like the idea of there being people "who use paper /That is colored only purple. /They are in the Purple-Paper People Club."
Agee illustrates each poem, and that adds to the fun. As for my favorite illustration, I'm torn between the Purple-Paper People and the picture of the unkempt camp.
Jon Agee obviously likes to play with words. One of his earlier books is Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog!And Other Palindromes. But for several years now I have been partial to his Milo's Hat Trick, in which a bear saves a down-on-his-luck magician by jumping out of his hat.