If you want something to get your children enthusiastic about poetry then one of these (or all) will surely appeal …

There’s a Monster in the Garden
David Harmer
Frances Lincoln pbk
This is a new edition from ex-headteacher, Harmer, re-illustrated and with an additional ten poems. Some of the poems feature school in its many aspects but the author covers a wide range of topics. Not schoolish unless you are thinking of Hogwarts or want your teacher to grow donkey’s ears is Harry Hobgoblin’s Superstore that sells all manner of spells, powders and potions; or Frosty Pinchface – what a wonderful name – with his ‘Fingers like icicles poking us to death,/Horrid hoarse whispers chill us to the core.” BRRR! And, if you’re out and about, watch out for Great Gran who is ‘manic on her motor bike.’ – a stunt-woman extraordinaire or that ghosty pirate of old Whitby Dock.
David Harmer is popular as a performance poet and it’s easy to see why. I too have had great fun sharing the contents of this book with primary school children on many occasions. (I did have to have a secret practice of Slick Nick’s Dog Tricks and Pasting Patsy’s Pasty Posters first though).

Crazy Classrooms
Paul Cookson
Frances Lincoln pbk
This is a funny, schoolcentric collection of over sixty snippets of life all seemingly written by those in the thick of it. There are also some more serious poems such as First Day New Class Blues, Iqbal Doesn’t Really Like School and Mothers’ Day Cards all of which really pack a powerful punch.
All aspects of life in a primary school are covered from The First Day After the Holidays which celebrates what’s good about the start of term, the school photograph – always something of a nightmare in my experience, there’s a humorous look at what teachers wear on their feet (boring socks) and around their necks – The Ties That Blind, a look at the joys (and otherwise) of school trips the playful take on teachers and their subjects – ‘The music teacher with no rhythm – Mister Beet’, ‘The depressing French teacher … Miss Eree’, not forgetting ‘The supply teacher who teachers all the subjects – Miss Ellaneous’ – to name just three of the cast of Twenty Teachers at our School. We also visit the staff room, meet The Office Manager – a vital person in any school, bullies, friends and much more – animate and inanimate.
Every one herein cries out to be read aloud but make sure you don’t leave your copy lying around in a primary classroom; it’s bound to be nicked.

My Life as a Goldfish
Rachel Rooney
Frances Lincoln pbk
This is the second of Rooney’s collections for children and she is the deserved winner of the CLPE Poetry Prize  Every one herein delights in its own way. Playful or thoughtful? Public or private? Long or short? Rhyming or not rhyming? You’ll find them all here whatever your taste. I’d find it very hard if not impossible to pick a favourite, but some I particularly love are Stone the first couplet of which is‘ Stone remembers sea: its salty lap./Sea remembers river’s winding map.’
Wide Open is also wonderful, managing in just 15 lines to capture much of the magnificence of our cosmos through a ‘magic eye’: an unhatched baby bird within its egg, sun, stars and a nameless planet in the galaxy, the vibrating hairs on the belly of an ant and finally, ‘Yesterday it spied on your nightmares/and tomorrow it will spy on your dreams.’ It makes one shiver and shudder inside. As does, for altogether different reasons, Wolf Girl who having lapped up hot pea soup is ‘curled in the lair of her robes,/howls for her brothers prowling the woods below.’
Then there’s two that (with my teacher’s hat on) really made me laugh Mrs Von Hugh – the teacher so fierce she could scare off the flu; and The Problem with Spelling which beautifully and succinctly sums up just that. And there’s the much more serious Liar wherein we are shown the alarming consequences of telling a single lie. It fed in the dark, grew fat on my shame/as I carried it with me. It whispered my name.
A book to draw readers in and then, I’m sure they’ll find themselves trapped within the covers for many hours relishing what they discover. It’s also one to share with a class and I suspect, like mine, your audiences will keep demanding, “Just one more.”

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