This audiobook has the 1989 Newbery winner, Joyful Noise, poems about insects, as well as an earlier, similar book, I Am Phoenix, poems about birds, by the same author. They are read aloud by anywhere from two to five voices.

The most effective poems, though, were those read only by two (as the author intended) that also had few or no contrasting words spoken simultaneously. I found the overlapping in the latter often difficult to understand, especially when read aloud by more than two voices. In Joyful Noise, five voices were used on “Cicada” (its concluding line is the source of the book’s title) and “Whirligig Beetles.” All this did was make the poems too loud (they seemed to be shouting) and too difficult to understand.

On the other hand, "Honeybees" was quite successful, even when overlapping, especially as voiced on the audiobook by a boy (the worker) and a girl (the queen). The boy was especially effective in expressing the malcontent of the worker bee’s life, portraying frustration in lines like “then I put in an hour making wax, without two minutes time to sit still and relax,” “..I’m on larva detail feeding the grubs in their cells, wishing that I were still helpless and pale,” and “Then I build some new cells, slaving away at enlarging this Hell, dreading the sight of another sunrise, wondering why we don’t all unionize.”

I thought the poems in I Am Phoenix were less effective; most seemed to simply be naming species of birds. Nevertheless, both books benefitted from being read aloud; neither book would be as effective if read silently by a single person. Running time for both books is only 35 minutes. ( )

Excellently read aloud (the best way to experience these poems). I will be using the audio in my classroom while the kids read along. Such a unique style and expressive word choice. ( )