Consider Love

From the sentimental to the soulful, this little book explores, in absolutely no depth whatsoever (yet with a number of lively and surely profound illustrations), the many and curious modes of love. Also it rhymes.

Pocket-sized, assuming that your loved one's pockets are pretty darn big, this lovely volume is a swell gifty object (hey, have you ever tried to write book cover copy?) as varied and delightful as a fine box of chocolates, yet with the decided advantage that there aren't any nougats or those icky little pineapple jelly things.

From simple love to love mysterious, love oh so hot to love rather coolish, Sandra Boynton and her ubiquitous hippos, turkeys, and cats consider the moods (and "many ways") of love. In impressive rhyming verse, Boynton holds forth on myriad kinds of love, accompanying each rhyme with illustrations of various romancing critters. Especially notable is "love problematic" (a pair of porcupines) and "Love... well, cheap" (an oafish gorilla unsmilingly offers his mate a banana peel). The dramatic sequence between a rooster and hen is also particularly hilarious. Boynton's inimitable style, as seen in such classics as Hippos Go Berserk!, Barnyard Dance!, The Going to Bed Book, etc., is in rare form in this book of love for all ages. The expressions on the faces of her cartoonish characters speak volumes, even above and beyond her whimsical, comical versifying. (Ages 4 to 104) --Emilie Coulter