Pick and Mix Poetry
chosen by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Becky Thorns
Macmillan Children’s Books

Overflowing with delights is Julia Donaldson’s collection of verse on topics ranging from shoes to spiders, fish to football and dandelions to dads. Included are poets from both sides of the Atlantic from John Agard, Dorothy Aldis and Maya Angelou and a fair few anons, to Colin West – good to see his poem about libraries along with Julia’s own The Library Rap, and Benjamin Zephaniah.

To a teacher and poetry anthologist like myself, many are old favourites, some going right back to my childhood, such as Eleanor Farjeon’s The Night Will Never Stay, Edward Lear’s Calico Pie, Walker de la Mare’s Some One and Frida Wolfe’s Choosing Shoes but I found some new poems too. One such was Jean Jazz’s Lullaby:
‘The moon and the stars and the wind / All night long sing a lullaby, / While down in the ocean so dark and so deep / The silvery waves rock the fishes to sleep.’ That one had previously managed to evade me.

With a soccer-mad relation, I enjoyed re-discovering Kit Wright’s The Man Who Invented Football. I hope it will encourage him to enjoy poetry as much as he does soccer.

Assuredly there’s something for everyone and all moods in this bumper offering. It’s a smashing book to share both at home or in a primary classroom and would make a superb present. As Michael Rosen’s poem Words reminds us ‘ Words are presents / that we give to each other.’

Becky Thorns has done a great job with the illustrations which never overwhelm the words on the page; rather they draw readers in to what’s written there.