Dragon Cat
Pie Corbett
Otter-Barry Books

A cracking collection of over fifty new poems from Pie Corbett, many of which are of a playful nature, several of which sent me back to my childhood. One of the latter is The School Photo when I was dared to do just what the narrator describes, ‘One year I was placed right on the end / of the line – the idea was that we all stood still while the camera panned round. / I waited till it had taken our side, jumped down and raced behind the rest of the school – to reappear the other end.’ The problem for me was that I got caught in the act.

Another is Owl where one of the verses goes like this:
‘Owl, owl, / head spinner, fly-by-night,silent flight, / feared by mice and voles. / Owl, owl, / is it true that you’ve taken up residence / in a hole in the trunk of a tree?’
An owl had definitely taken up residence in the large oak tree in our garden and I used to get out of bed and sit waiting for it to appear.

Many of the poems are ideal as models to inspire children’s creativity. One such is When I Blew the Magic Dust, which goes on to use this line to begin three subsequent verses. Another is One -Word Bird Poems.

As a Result is great for starting with an image – in Pie’s poem, ‘As a result of dark clouds – snowmen gather at dusk./ As a result of snowmen – no carrots for lunch.’ Children can then explore and create their own concatenations of images and ideas.

This collection is a veritable treasure trove of imagery and the poems are a delight to read aloud.
Pie has used a variety of techniques and poetic forms – acrostics, kennings, riddles and more and employed lots of word play. Indeed there’s humour aplenty, not least in Tom Morgan-Jones’ black and white illustrations.

A must have book for poetry collections both at home and in the classroom. I can’t close without mentioning Torn by War – Ukraine, Palestine and Too Many More: I’d buy the book for this one alone.