Author/illustrator Loris Lesynski presents a collection of poetry specifically for the kindergarten crowd. Zigzag’s 21 rhymes cover familiar aspects of the kindergarten experience, such as “Sit on Your Bottom,” “Paintbrush,” “Paper,” and “Scissors,” but also offer poetry reflecting the humour and mindset of typical five-year-olds. These rap-like rhymes are full of action and meant to be read with much volume and inflection.

Some poems find an original mark, such as “Paper” (“If I were made of paper/and you were paper too/we’d go to school in an envelope/and close the door with glue”) and “Cars Coming?” (“Kids are cute/but wheels don’t care/Check the traffic/see what’s there”). “Stomp Up Steps” is an effective concrete poem where the choice of font reflects the movement cited in the verses, encouraging active and interactive reading.

The watercolour and pencil crayon illustrations are a perfect choice for poems about kindergarten, and Lesynski includes imaginative touches in her designs, such as drawing a boy as a pair of scissors and having the children in the pictures look at the text as though they’re reading about themselves. Her trademark wide-eyed and wildly freckled multicultural kids will catch the eyes of kindergarteners as they leap through pages of school activities and comment on the world around them.

However, despite the clever idea of aiming a book at a specific age group, Lesynski’s poems aren’t consistently strong enough to make Zigzag a memorable collection. The title poem suffers from an awkward meter, and variations in font and print colour lead to confusion about where the poem begins and ends. In other selections, a different grouping or visual presentation of the stanzas and verses would have made finding the exact rhythm an easier task. A little fine-
tuning in design and stronger content would have elevated Zigzag from being simply a pleasant but non-essential title.