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Sandra Boynton

 The NYT is celebrating 50 years of Sandra Boynton in print. I'd like to nominate one Boynton title as the greatest--it's "The Belly Button Book."


In this tale, a group of hippos celebrate their belly buttons.

We always like to get balloons...
And I know why. Do you?
It's because we like to think balloons
Have belly buttons, too.

Boynton then moves the action to "Belly Button Beach":

Where hippos like to stand around
In bathing suits too little--
Because we hope you will admire 
The button in our middle.

But life's pleasures are fleeting, and Boynton has a brutal conclusion, surprising and inevitable.

We love to show our belly b's--
We show them off with pride.
But not in chilly wintertime--
When belly buttons hide.
No, not in chilly wintertime--
When belly buttons hide.

A mic-drop kind of performance. Not a word is wasted.
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