Grown-Ups Are Better (I)
Grown-ups are better than children at chess,
And cleaning and fixing and mopping a mess.
They’re better at baking and frying and steaming…
But children are better at dreaming.
Grown-ups are better than children at math,
And flushing and brushing and drawing a bath.
They’re better at counting and buying and paying…
But children are better at playing.
Grown-ups are better than children at sports,
And driving and working and filing reports.
They’re better at pushing and pulling and lugging…
But children are better at hugging.
Grown-ups are better at most stuff, you see,
From tying a shoelace to chopping a tree.
But children are gooder and grown-ups are badder
At just about all things that matter.
— Chris Harris
Copyright © 2017. All Rights Reserved. From I'm Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups. Little Brown Books for Young Readers. Reprinted by permission of the author.
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From I'm Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups
The instant New York Times bestseller featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon! B. J. Novak (bestselling author of The Book With No Pictures) described this groundbreaking poetry collection as “Smart and sweet, wild and wicked, brilliantly funny–it’s everything a book for kids should be.”
Lauded by critics as a worthy heir to such greats as Silverstein, Seuss, Nash and Lear, Harris’s hilarious debut molds wit and wordplay, nonsense and oxymoron, and visual and verbal sleight-of-hand in masterful ways that make you look at the world in a whole new wonderfully upside-down way. With enthusiastic endorsements from bestselling luminaries such as Lemony Snicket, Judith Viorst, Andrea Beaty, and many others, this entirely unique collection offers a surprise around every corner. Adding to the fun: Lane Smith, bestselling creator of beloved hits like It’s a Book and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, has spectacularly illustrated this extraordinary collection with nearly one hundred pieces of appropriately absurd art. It’s a mischievous match made in heaven!
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About the Author
Chris Harris is the author of the number-one-except-for-two-other-books New York Times-bestselling book I’m Just No Good at Rhyming—lauded by Publisher’s Weekly as “a worthy heir to Silverstein, Seuss and even Ogden Nash”—as well as The Alphabet’s Alphabet, illustrated by Dan Santat and praised by Kirkus as “a sure-fire winner.”
Chris lives in Los Angeles with his wife Hilary, two children, and a dog who purrs like a cat. He loves solving puzzles, playing games, and eating hoards of peppermint stick ice cream. Chris has also spent over twenty years in television, most of it hovering around the snack table. Among his credits are writer/executive producer for How I Met Your Mother, executive producer/showrunner for The Goodwin Games and The Great Indoors, and writer for The Late Show with David Letterman. His written pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, ESPN, and on one of those shows on NPR – probably All Things Considered, but it’s been a while so he’s not 100% certain.
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