A Welly full of Christmas Attie Lime, illustrated by Nadine Licence Tiny Tree Books
I loved Attie’s Blue Jelly and Strawberries and so was eagerly anticipating her new seasonal offering, which is subtitled ‘Poems for Festive Fun’ and fun is what is contained herein.
There are forty poems, just over half of which actually contain the word Christmas; others focus on wintry weather, snow and there’s one, The Concert that took me way back to my very first reception class Christmas concert. This talks of a boy who wanted to ‘strum’, ‘hum’ and ‘drum pa-rum-pum-pum’ but was allocated a triangle to play. In my class two boys side by side were energetically playing maracas when one accidentally knocked the other’s instrument and the result is summed up in the delicious onomatopoeia of the final verse: ‘BASH CRASH THUMP and THWACK and SMASH … WALLOP, WHACK and CLASH … SMACK and BANG and THRASH’ that ensued as the boys started whacking one another with their maracas. Fortunately the audience thought it hilarious while I, thoroughly embarrassed, was endeavouring keep things going.
My two favourites don’t mention Christmas; both have a weather theme. There’s one describing a Sunday walk: I love the idea of sending ‘ pebbles skittering over ice clatter rattle, clatter rattle, clatter rattle’. I’ll try that at the next opportunity.
The other is Snowflakes, which describes these amazing forms as ‘sparkling icy glow-flakes / putting on a show-flakes’.
With a variety of poetic forms and moods, and an abundance of wit and warm-heartedness,.plus black and white illustrations by Nadine Licence, these offerings are a joy to read aloud to foundation stage/ KS1 children in the next few weeks.
Subtitled Neal Zetter’s Greatest Hits, this lively book contains the forty two most frequently requested poems by children during two decades of school visits, plus two bonus ones, and covers choices from the performance poet’s eight previously published books:
From his first, Bees in My Bananas, comes one of my favourites – Cool Addiction, the first verse of which goes thus: ‘My head is stuck inside this book / I only meant to take a look / Till I saw what was written / Instantly my mind was smitten / In a land of fascination / Sparking my imagination / Passions burning like a flame / Pictures dancing in my brain’. What more could a writer ask of their book?
I’d not come across Terrific Tot (from Here Come the Superheroes) before but it’s a fun example of Neal’s rapping style: here’s the opening verse: ‘he’s a hero in a nappy / But don’t let that put you off / He can tackle twenty rhinos / He can handle rough and tough / Though he nearly is a newborn / And still peeing in a pot / He’s a baby trained to save me / Shout his name / Terrific Tot!
I think though, that my favourite of all is the new offering, Just Be You. Here’s the 4th and final verse: ‘It’s the words that you speak / It’s the things that you do / So why be someone else / Just be you.’ This is a poem that every child needs to hear over and over and …
With occasional black and white illustrations by Emily Ford, this is a book for primary age children be they at home, or at school. Ideally wherever they read these poems, it should be aloud to get the best from the beat and liveliness, wordplay and rhyme.
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.
Five Little Friends Sean Taylor and Fiona Woodcock Walker Books
What a treat for anybody who wants to get young children moving their hands, arms and sometimes their whole bodies, and using their imaginations too. This collection of thirty five short rhymes that cover all manner of topics both of the everyday and those full of drama, from tree climbing to teeth brushing, a bubble to a bike and a snake to snow.
There’s a wealth of lovely, playful language such as this from The Waterslide – ‘I’m sliding, sliding, sliding, / in a slipping, speeding flash. // Then I’m out the end / and ready for the … SPLASH!’
I had to laugh to myself as I read On My Phone that encourages young children (for the duration of the rhyme I hasten to add) to imitate the adults around them: it includes the lines ‘On my phone I listen music / and hear messages from my boss’ and concludes ‘I am on my phone so much / I think it’s stuck to my hand …’
The way Fiona Woodcock has incorporated visual cues to suggest actions for the rhymes into her mixed media illustrations is nothing short of genius. See how she presents The Wind –
Totally different but equally clever and highly effective is the Snake portrayal –
Teachers, librarians and carers have long used finger plays and action rhymes with young children; this new collaboration from Sean and Fiona offering hours and hours of enriching fun is a must have.
I Hear The Trees Zaro Weil, illustrated by Junli Song Welbeck Children’s Books
From her opening words, ‘when I walk/ wide-eyed/ through today/ yesterday is forgotten/ tomorrow faraway’ Zaro Weil asks readers to be in the moment and to immerse themselves in the natural world as they join her in this poetry extravaganza.
It’s impossible to do anything else in the opening poem, I Hear The Trees which involves engaging several senses – hearing ‘I hear the trees / gather in sunbeams’ , smelling ‘I smell the orange / crinkle of leaves\ and feeling ‘feel the brushes of tiny beasts burrowing inside swells of / rough bark.’ looking ‘ I watch autumn glow / through still warm trunks’.
A number of different feelings and emotions are evoked, from utterly joyful to sad; there’s humour aplenty and lots of alliteration and other word play. I can almost taste the Bamboozled Berries, those ‘bunches of bounteous berries / brimming bright balls’, which get gobbled up by birds.
Zaro writes about a wide variety of subjects from snakes to space, frogs to fungi and flowers as well as dinosaurs and a play wherein some cultivated flowers at Kew Gardens gang up on a Dandelion calling it a ‘good-for-nothing weed’ and Dandelion goes on to explain to them the benefits of having it in their community.
There’s sure to be something that will appeal to almost everyone herein and the author ends with a vital message, ‘hold tight to your world / for your world is my world / your planet my planet.’ – conservation in a nutshell.
With Junli Song’s print style illustrations throughout and some activity suggestions for educators, parents and children from the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, this is a book for both class and home collections.
Blue Jelly and Strawberries Attie Lime, illustrated by Kate Sheppard Otter-Barry Books
Brimming over with playful notions is this debut collection of poems by Attie Lime, with black and white illustrations by Kate Sheppard.
Herein you’ll find whimsical wonderings (What can you carry in your hat?) and thought provoking possibilities – What might your magic bean grow? and What would you do if you were spring? – ‘hang jellybeans from all the trees’ like the author maybe, curious questions (do triceratops wear pyjamas?) and nonsensical wordplays – ‘im am oo / sploosha whoosha / flim flam floo!’
All of these and many others powerfully convey the message that language is fun. Nevertheless my very favourite poem is I Love Books – a straightforward tribute to the vast variety of books and by implication what might be found within.
I also love The Pancake of Positivity the first two verses of which go thus: ‘My pancake is a CANcake / full of positivity / bursting full of yes-es / so sweet and syrupy. // My pancake is a problem-solver / helpful, kind (and sticky) / it finds a way to save the day / when life gets really tricky.’
There are concrete poems of the curious kind as well as an acrostic and several quatrains. All this adds up to a book with something , make that many somethings, to please young readers and listeners; if you are a KS1 teacher definitely share this with your class; if you’re a parent who wants your child to discover the joys of poetry then get them a copy.
Ten-Word Tiny Tales of Love Joseph Coelho (and 21 illustrator friends) Walker Books
This is former children’s laureate Joseph Coelho’s second Ten-Word Tiny Tales offering, this one having a unifying theme – love – and in an introduction, Joseph tells readers how the tiny tales came about. Each of the tales is moving in its own special way; you will find great sadness, tender parental and sibling love, spookiness, the fantastical, the humorous and more.
Coming from all over the world, each one of the talented artists has created an equally special, very different scene, thus making every turn of the page a verbal and a visual delight.
We see enigmatic and literal interpretations as well as ambiguity: there is love for such diverse things as a bike, baby birds and a brother,
but in every case the intention is to create a world – a space of awareness – that will spark the reader’s imagination.
To facilitate this, Joseph offers some story writing prompts in the final two spreads. Altogether a treasure trove that holds within, a wealth of possibilities for creativity both in the classroom and at home.
Squeak! Squawk! Roar! Kate Williams, illustrated by Hannah Asen Otter-Barry Books
It’s good to see that Kate Williams, contributor to a fair few anthologies now has her first solo collection comprising fifty five poems and great fun it is too. Essentially it’s a celebration of the tremendous variety of animals that share our planet, but Kate also draws our attention to the plight of so many amazing animals on account of the selfish or thoughtless actions of humans in one way or another. Take for example Jungle Shrink that tells of the destructive effects on the animal inhabitants when tree felling machines go into action, ‘Brmmmm-thud! Brmmmm-thud!’ . And Sharp Wrecked: ‘Gentle as the sliding tide is gentle, / peaceful as the lolling waves are peaceful, rare as her forebears once were plentiful, / harmless as the jagged junk is harmful, / vulnerable as never before, / is turtle.’ No matter where you open the book, the author’s love of earth’s fauna is evident.
It’s not easy choosing just a few to draw attention to, but on the day of writing as well as the above mentioned, I was especially drawn to Dance of the Penguins, a superb portrayal of a sequence of penguin movements;
also Foal in the Field, a delightful account of one foal’s transition from a ‘lazing, dozing; bundle in the grass’ to a ‘ skipping, gliding; // dancer in a golden glow.’
and Albatross – ‘Lone ocean bird surfing the sunset’s glow – so bright, so white so graceful, so grand so calm so strong solo’
Adding to the enjoyment are Hannah Asen’s black and white illustrations of many of the featured creatures from mice to monkeys, swans to snails and cows to cobras.
Definitely recommended for solo reading and for classroom sharing. Great to dip in to as well as using as part of an animal theme (so long as you remember the fine line between ‘using’ and ‘abusing’ the poems).
Boing! James Carter, illustrated by Neal Layton Otter-Barry Books
James Carter has penned twenty four poems on the topic of bugs and minibeasts, each one bugtastiically and playfully illustrated by Neal Layton. First come the bugs, or insects if you prefer to be more scientific. This larger section of the book comprises a few general, inclusive bug poems and then moves on to specific insects. On this occasion, two that particularly tickled my fancy are fANTastic wherein the titchy, tiny ants speak for themselves, asserting, ‘We’re stronger than / you humankind // and just as smart / we think you’ll find. // How can we lift / a giANT stick? // That’s because we’re // fANTastic!’
I have to admit that I’m a bee supporter and so was immediately was drawn to What Can It Be …? where we read of the insect bee-ing among other things, a ‘flower-lover’ , … ‘planet-aider, pollinator, super stinger, syrup-bringer’. (The super-stinger is only true of the female bees, so we read in the ‘fab fact time’ note beneath the poem. There are also poems featuring a grasshopper, a flea (or several), a butterfly, a caterpillar, a moth, a wasp, a ladybird, a firefly; we share the details of a day in the life of a dung beetle, hear from a dragonfly, eavesdrop on a conversation between a spider and a fly, start itching as we read of bed bugs, followed by a mosquito. (Keep your insect repellant handy.) The second section has six ‘minibeasts’poems: herein we encounter a silvery trail leaving, ‘sticky riddle’ writing snail, a millipede, a spider
and finally a ‘micro-tiny, / weeny small’ tardigrade. A collection that’s full of fun poems, sprinkled with facts, exuberantly illustrated and well worth adding to a classroom collection or home bookshelves. I’m sure if you start reading one or two aloud, there’ll be requests for ‘MORE PLEASE!’
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.
A Lot Of Silly Joy Cowley, illustrated by David Barrow Gecko Press
Herein we have almost forty pieces of silliness by Joy Cowley, all of which I think have come from her previous works and it’s terrific to have them brought together just waiting to make both children and adults giggle.
Doubtless everyone will have different favourites but some that especially appealed to me are MyTiger that tells what happens when a child takes his tiger that is suffering from toothache to the dentist. Following the fixing of the problem the dentist instructs, “Tell him he’s not to have cake again. … It’s bad for him.” The dentist goes on to say that the tiger should in future restrict his diet to “The same as other tigers,” You can guess what happens.
Also tickling my fancy was The Big Red Rose. This features Bubba, a little elephant that sniffs said rose; it goes right up her trunk and becomes stuck. A visit to the vet with Mother Elephant proves unsuccessful despite the fact that, ‘The vet got out his telescope, / a light, some pliers, a bit of rope’. Mother Elephant then resorts to an application from a sneeze-inducing condiment. Will that remove the blockage? Ah / Ah – ah / Ah- ah- ah … “ Hurrah!
There are a number of other poems and tales about elephants and you will also find such subjects as frogs, cats,
witches, a grizzly bear that gets stung by a bee and The Horrible Thing with Hairy Feet, intent on making a meal of a bunny rabbit.
Equally full of fun are David Barrow’s illustrations, which combined with the text make this a thoroughly enjoyable book to give or to share in a primary classroom.
Big Red Dragon: Play Rhymes Through the Year Jane Newberry and Carolina Rabei Otter-Barry Books
From dinosaurs to diggers and rattle snakes to robins, this lively collection of fifteen playful action rhymes will soon have young children, be they at home or in an early years setting, eagerly participating in both actions and words.
The festival related rhymes are arranged through the year starting with the titular Big Red Dragon for Chinese New Year, then the Easter Bunny, Halloween Fun and Happy Diwali and Naughty Reindeer. Each rhyme has a ‘Let’s Play’ suggestion set into the illustration giving ideas for ways little ones can join in, although some rhymes themselves will suggest movements and sounds, for instance toddlers might like to emulate the dragon’s paws and wings ‘clap clapping’, and ‘flap flapping’ with possible shouts of “Boing!’ as accompaniment.
Carolina Rabei’s playful illustrations are an ideal match for Jane Newberry’s rhymes;
her visual images are vibrantly coloured, textured, perfectly in tune with the words and sure to appeal to young children.
Definitely worth adding to foundation stage collections: I envisage it being used in lots of story time sessions when it will unobtrusively help develop children’s verbal and visual learning.
Wise Up! Wise Down! John Agard, JonArno Lawson, illustrated By Satoshi Kitamura Walker Books
Three awesome creative people from children’s literature have collaborated on what is sure to become a favourite poetry book for many readers. Two friends John Agard and JonArno Lawson provide the words and the distinctive art of Satoshi Kitamura provides the wonderful, whimsical illustrations. So, when you open this book be prepared to embark on a foray into a lively, thought-provoking conversation between prize-winning poets. It’s so cleverly put together with the two voices taking turns throughout; they’re made to seem as if one person’s thoughts have immediately initiated a response from the other, despite many of the poems having been published previously.
Sure to get your brain cells buzzing are Jon Agard’s Mind, What Exactly Are You? and JonArno Lawson’s rejoinder Never Mind. So too will Questions (JA) and Should I Be Me? (JL) Philosophical posers each one of which could be used to open a community of enquiry type discussion.
There’s humour too, of a wicked kind in for instance, JA’s Crocodile’s Tale: ‘The last man who mistook me for a log / Lost half a foot and can no longer jog.’ and Alligator’s Response (‘Is that right, old Croc? / But can he still walk? // The last man who stopped to look me in the eye? / That falling-down man was an upstanding guy.’ (JL)
What comes across loud and clear is both poets have never lost their sense of awe and wonder about life, the universe and all that: JL summarises this in the final lines of the verse in the final poem: ‘figuring out this strange world will never / be anything less or anything but / a forever and ever adventure.’ A perfect close to a terrific book.
Read it at home, read it in the classroom and then perhaps try out some of the suggestions given at the end.
Zooming the Zoo John Dougherty, illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones Otter-Barry Books
There are over sixty poems in this splendid collection. Most are light-hearted in tone but nonetheless the author often uses humour to put across serious ideas, my most favourite being Just Let Me Read, which wearing my teacher’s hat, is spot on and absolutely in the spirit of a recent Guardian report about the joy having been sucked from the education system by the present government. The poem begins thus: ‘Just let me read / Without counting commas / Identifying idioms / Noticing nouns / Analysing analogies // Just let me feel a sense of wonder / / Without asking me to wonder / How it was achieved.’ Himself an ex-teacher, Dougherty doesn’t say that this should never be done, rather that it should not be the raison d’etre for asking children to read something.
I’m sure children will be amused by When You’re a Kid about them being able to sit on a loo seat the wrong way round and pretending to be riding a motorbike, whereas teachers cannot do this. I guess it rather depends where the loo happens to be: this teacher is able to do so in the privacy of her own bathroom.
Another poem I particularly like is the three-liner In the Library, which says so much in so few words. Another is Learning to Walk about the importance of risk-taking in learning.
The author’s early life in Ireland is the subject of both Taking My Children to Larne in which he recalls a time during The Troubles when bombings were as he says ‘normal’. It’s also mentioned in The First Time I Went to Scotland wherein he remembers being searched before entering shops in Northern Ireland.
Finally, I suspect everyone will be amused at the titular poem about a Zoom meeting that doesn’t quite go to plan on account of animal mishaps.
Whatever your children’s feelings about poetry, it’s definitely worth sharing some of John’s work with them; I’m sure you’ll find poems to please everybody. Individual readers will enjoy Tom Morgan-Jones’ black and white illustrations.
Twenty poets and four illustrators have contributed to the latest Little Tiger collection, this one being a celebration of mindfulness. Mindfulness I see as the state of being wholly in the present, completely awake and aware of each moment, fully engaged in one’s surroundings and accepting that experience without judgement.
The range of poets here is contemporary and interesting, and included are new poems and some previously published ones. such as Michael Rosen’s The Rhythm of Life and, Zero Weil’s Hide and Seek. Therein she describes looking for quiet and after going to the woods and the sea, concludes ‘I found quiet / it must have been hiding / the whole time / inside my words / inside of me’.
I’ve loved that one since discovering it in Cherry Moon.
Each poet in their own way takes an everyday object or occurrence and transforms it into something memorable and in so doing is asking the reader to look anew at the world. Two poets call on readers to put pen to paper, to preserve (Carter) or let go of (Wakeling) their thoughts. In James Carter’s How Easily, he reminds us how special ’moments disappear like sand.’ Moments such as the sight of raindrops sparkling on a lake and ‘The night / you tried to count the stars.’
Kate Wakeling suggests if you’re feeling down or troubled by your thoughts, settling wherever you are, taking a pen and without stopping or thinking, allowing it to explore, in words or pictures, squiggles even. In so doing you may well find ‘some bright new / thoughts begin to / grow.’ It’s certainly worth trying The Ink Cure next time you feel your brain knotting up.
So too is Nikita Gill’s A Lesson from the Trees. Offering not words or thoughts but a reassurance ‘they will listen to you too, / and show you that the answer / to all life’s storms / is to be patient / and stand strong.’
Each double spread is beautifully presented and the four illustrators have been mindful of not overwhelming the words with their images.
Add to your poetry collection be that at home or in the classroom.
The Shape of Rainbows Neal Zetter, illustrated by Will Hughes Otter-Barry Books
There’s a zippy zing to the poems herein – nearly fifty in all – and they simply cry out to be read aloud to, and by, primary children. Although on second thoughts that excludes Breakfast unless you are a pronunciation wizard and can say ‘Greg / Gges / Segg / Ggse’ as well as R a ndo m because how it looks on the page is part of the fun.
There’s one poem where every single word (and there are rather a lot) begins with the letter A either in its lower case or capital form. It’s title is Adam’s Apple and it tells of a boy who consumed nothing but apples until something unpleasant happened to him and then, on the advice of adults, he changed his diet.
When I was a classroom teacher, be that in the foundation stage, KS1 or KS2, we had a daily ‘together time’ session for children to share their ideas, things they’d made etc and I always shared a poem. Neal’s latest collection is one I would definitely add to my ‘go to’ books of poems to use in such sessions. What child wouldn’t want to hear The Day I Ate My School wherein the young narrator apologises for having consumed a most unlikely school dinner, or learn of an Interstellar Mum and I would certainly encourage everyone to Grab a Book and as Neal says in the opening lines ‘Open it / Relish it / Ogle it / Cherish it ‘ …
Will Hughes adds to the fun of every spread with one of his zany black and white illustrations.
Through stunning illustrations with details meticulously painted and four lined poems, Dennis McGregor introduces readers to sixteen pairs of animals that share names but not anatomy..
Similarities and/or differences are highlighted, depending on which animal voice is speaking. Thus, fish and fowl share rainbow hues but the parrotfish that speaks flies through the sea whereas the parrot it addresses flies through the skies, something the fish envies.
In contrast, the Cowbird comments in alliterative style, ‘Fashion choices I prefer / feature feathers over fur.’ when talking to the black and white cow upon whose back it perches.
In the opening poem the Kangaroo and the kangaroo rat have much in common and so the marsupial doesn’t mind that the little rodent shares its name. Turn the page and thereon the chicken is rather less enthusiastic about sharing her name with the predatory chicken hawk.
Next, addressing the catfish through the glass of its tank, a moggy comments somewhat resentfully thus: ‘You don’t meow or even purr. / You have no paws, you have no fur. / I guess it’s whiskers we can blame / for the stealing of my name.’
A book that will appeal most to both art lovers and animal enthusiasts from around seven years old.
Dasher Can’t Wait for Christmas Matt Tavares Walker Books
Dasher (the reindeer we met previously in the book named after her) is so impatient she just cannot wait for the big night when she’ll help pull Santa’s sleigh. With just one sleep remaining before Christmas Eve, she’s wide awake with excitement and taking a run, she leaps skyward to investigate the music she’s heard.
Enjoying herself thoroughly, as the music dies away she spies bright lights on the horizon. In her joy, she fails to pay heed to the falling snow and is unable to find the North Star to guide her, so again she takes to the sky, hoping to find something familiar. At last she sees something bright way ahead.
Flying towards the light, she discovers a wonderful Christmas tree in a garden and decides to land to take a rest. There she encounters a small girl. Having admitted to being lost and hungry, she receives, thanks to the child Charlie’s kindness, both food and a means of finding the way back home. This Dasher does, just in time to reach the North Pole where a worried Mama and Santa await.
Then off they go, the reindeer team pulling Santa along on his delivery round, during which Dasher ensures that they stop to leave a special thank you to Charlie.
A gentle story with some tense moments and a happy ending, dramatically illustrated by the author.
’Tis The Season illustrated by Richard Jones Nosy Crow
Constructed of thick card, this fold out book will work well with children from around four, right through KS1. Of the twenty four shortish poems included some have a distinct Christmas feel, others are wintry and the whole thing opens into a gorgeous advent calendar zigzag frieze that can be brought out yearly on the first of December.
There are flaps to open on each of Richard Jones’ beautifully illustrated snowy spreads, the first five of which have four poems each, the next has three and the final page has Philip Waddell’s clever What Christmas Is For, the last two lines of which are the hugely pertinent, ‘Christmas is a time for peace – / Forgiving and forgetting.’
What You Need To Be Warm Neil Gaiman Bloomsbury Children’s Books
In 2019 Neil Gaiman author and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, asked his Twitter followers, ‘What reminds you of warmth?’ He received thousands of replies and from these he composed a freeform poem in aid of UNHCR’s 2019 winter appeal.
The images Gaiman gathered signifying warmth range from clutching a baked potato
to ‘The tink tink tink of / iron radiators /waking in an old house. / To surface from dreams in a bed , / burrowed beneath blankets / and comforters,’ …to ‘the wood burning / in the stove’ . There is hope though for the poem concludes thus, ‘You have the right / to be here.’ Thirteen artists: Yuliya Gwilym, Nadine Kaadan, Pam Smy, Daniel Egnéus, Beth Suzanna, Marie-Alice Harel, Petr Horáček, Chris Riddell, Bagram Ibatoulline, Benji Davies, Majid Adin,
and Richard Jones each provided an original illustration. Twelve illustrators offered comments printed at the back of the book. Oliver Jeffers created the stirring cover art and this important, compelling book is the result.
A wonderfully warm glow emanates from his cover images: would that such warmth be offered to all refugees and other people displaced of necessity around the world. With both the on-going conflict in Ukraine and now that in Israel and Gaza, its humanitarian message is even more urgent today than it was four years back when the tweet went out.
A donation of £1.55 from each sale of the book in the UK and at least 40p from sales in other territories will be donated to the UN Refugee Agency.
A Whale Of A Time sel. Lou Peacock, illustrated by Matt Hunt Nosy Crow
Wow! What an enormous undertaking on Lou Peacock’s part, selecting a funny poem for every day of the year, including one for a leap year, was my immediate thought on receiving this book. My next, following almost immediately was, what an enormous amount of pleasure this carefully selected collection will give to children, families and classes.
There are twelve sections, one for each month. The spreads have between one and five poems and each spread is illustrated with panache by Matt Hunt in a way that draws together all the poems thereon. This makes it hard to resist reading each poem, if there’s more than one; why not say I.
Most of the poets – a diverse lot – whose work is included herein are familiar to this reviewer, though there’s a sprinkling of new names too and a fair few that are anonymous. I’d not before encountered Rolli; the first verse of The Moonless Night goes thus: ‘Oh, please, / Oh, please! / The moon’s not cheese. / It’s golden-crumbling / tummy-rumbling / crispy-flaking / hungry-making / butter-fluffy / oven-puffy / rich and tasty / PASTRY!’ What a lot of tasty kennings. However, if your preference is for Jumblies, Jellicle Cats or Jamaican Summers, you’ll find those too.
There are nursery rhymes re-written including an anonymous version of Mary Had A Little Lamb: ‘Mary had a little lamb, / A lobster, and some prunes, / A glass of milk, a piece of pie, / And then some macaroons.’ There’s also this ‘Mary had a crocodile / That ate a child each day; / But interfering people came / And took her pet away.’
Everyday topics abound – there are socks, shoes,
sneezes, spinach as well as dogs, dinosaurs, the weather, and family members, to mention a few.
Whatever way you choose to read this book – preferably aloud with other people – you are guaranteed to find an abundance of fun. Every primary classroom needs a copy.
A First Book of Dinosaurs Simon Mole and Matt Hunt Walker Books
It surely is a case of ‘eat or be eaten’ in Simon Mole’s poetic presentation of dinosaurs in all shapes and sizes. The large format book dramatically illustrated in collage style by Matt Hunt is divided into four sections: ‘Meet the Dinosaurs’, ‘Eat or Be Eaten’, ‘Dinosaur Families’ and ‘The End. Or Is It?’ Readers/listeners will encounter some already established favourites such as Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex (the first two featured), Stegosaurus and Diplodocus called herein Planet On Legs on account of the numerous small creatures that live on its back. There are many less well known creatures too including the dog-sized Eoraptor (new to this reviewer as is Baryonyx). I love Simon’s description of that one: ‘Swift-sprinter / Tail-flicker / River-watcher / Quick- dasher / Fish-grabber / Flesh-ripper // Best hunter / Gets dinner!’ together with Matt Hunt’s dynamic visual interpretation. A wealth of kennings in that.
Readers are introduced to a variety of poetic forms: Ankylosaurus, Sauropelta and Euoplocephalis are all described in a single acrostic entitled Tough! Tough! Tough!.
There’s a wealth of onomatopoeia, some similes and metaphors, a recipe and even a dialogue with a present-day chicken. To find out what said chicken is doing in a book about dinosaurs, you’ll need to get your own copy; so doing will make you popular with youngsters for sure.
After a look at the downfall of dinos and some fossil evidence, the book ends with a somewhat truncated dinosaur timeline.
A large-format, romping, stomping treasure, beautifully produced and one hopes, likely to turn a fair number of dinosaur-fanatic children into poetry enthusiasts too.
The Star Whale Nicola Davies and Petr Horáček Otter-Barry Books
What a truly beautiful celebration of some of the world’s natural beauty is this book containing forty poems penned by zoologist/ writer Nicola Davies, each one accompanied by a stunning painterly illustration by Petr Horáček.
It’s impossible for me to choose absolute favourites, such are the riches contained herein but one I was instantly drawn to today is Kingfisher, the opening and closing lines of which are: ‘A strike of turquoise lightning / Swallowed by its own reflection / … ‘And nothing matters in the world / But this small glint of wonder.’
It seems as though Nicola visited our re-wilded garden for her description of the kind of garden she loves – a place where ‘stems make a jungly chaos / and beetles prowl.’ … ‘Where wildflowers bloom to feed the butterflies / and bees.’ … ‘where neat and tidy are forgotten / and nature rules.’
As trees are my favourite thing in the natural world, I was also attracted to Mama Tree wherein the description of interconnectedness goes like this: ‘ Mama tree is talking to her children. / Through fungal fingers that wrap around her roots / she reaches out like any mother / to touch, to feed, to warn.’ If I sat beneath the tree Petr has painted for this poem, I don’t think I’d want to move. for a long time.
In this wonderful book you will also be able to fly on the back of a bat and ’learn all the star-scattered secrets of night,’ meet a morning raven, attempt to get your tongue around the moth alphabet, join the Earth in her seasonal dance around the sun; be enchanted by the colours of a dragonfly; you could even encounter a dinosaur or two.
Who Let the Words Out? Joshua Seigal, illustrated by Chris Piascik Bloomsbury Education
Joshua Seigal keeps the mood light again with his latest assemblage of more than sixty poems. Many are on school-related topics including The Orange Table about being consigned to a group of less bright children in class. One verse goes like this: I’m not so hot at school work, / which means I’m not too smart / so I sit on the Orange Table / so I can be kept apart.’
Mistaken Identity refers to a happening I’ve been on the receiving end of numerous times although my gender doesn’t match that here: ‘I Called my teacher ‘Mummy’ / which, I’m sure you will concur, / was really rather stupid / as his real name is ‘Sir’. ‘
I particularly enjoyed Poem For Libraries: here’s the final verse. ‘Come to a place / that can sate your addiction / to rollicking rhymes / and fabulous fiction; / a place you can travel / through time at your leisure: / a library of pages / to savour and treasure.’ That could well be put on the door of every public library we’re lucky enough still to have, as well as on the wall of school libraries.
Cats, either large or small, as well as other animals, feature in several poems; you’ll also find one about a teacher acting very strangely, it’s called Going Feral and the final poem, also about a teacher, is one of the few sad ones: I Found It. I won’t quote any of that but hopefully it will whet your appetite and send you out to find a copy of this smashing new collection so you can read it in its entirety and enjoy Chris Piascik’s drawings too.
Welcome to Wild Town AF Harrold and Dom Conlon, illustrated by Korky Paul Otter-Barry Books
Have you ever wondered what it means to be truly wild? No? Then you really should pay a visit to Wild Town, for which Korky Paul has provided a map to peruse before arrival. Like the poems, the town is organised into several areas or sections and having, like Dom Condon, signed The Wild Agreement, readers are free to enter therein.
As a vegan, I’m happy to see that our first location is Herbivoreville. However after sampling several of the poems I’m not sure how relaxed I feel here, especially after reading Harold’s Wild Town Proverb #1: ‘A weed’s just a plant / growing in the wrong place. // Tell that to the fly-trap / latched onto / my face.
Playful, yes, as are The Rabbit’s Prayer and Dom’s Elephant Cleaner: ‘ The Elephants empty the bins in twos, / then wash he floors and clean the loos. / They wipe the tops with hairy mops – / one works hard whilst the other stops – / and yet the truth, I must confess, / is that they leave the house a mess.’
Moving on, the Fluttertown offers an opportunity to stay at Chrysalis Hotel, though after reading this in Harold’s description, “Squeeze in and relax // Relax so much you turn to mush – / become a soup filling the room.” I might just give it a miss and move on with some trepidation to the Carnivore Quarter, stopping only on account of Dom’s The Rule Breaker because I tend to be a rule breaker: here are a couple of the verses:’We crept outside when it was dark / We climbed the fences int he park / We did the things they said we couldn’t / We didn’t stop at things we shouldn’t . … We wouldn’t eat the food they grew / We wouldn’t learn the things they knew / We ran and played and sang out loud / We stood up tall and were not bowed’.
All manner of animals reside in this environment, significantly the lions and cheetahs – they feature in several poems; the ducks in Wolf Park are a pretty intolerant lot causing a to do on account of the streaker in Harald’s Going Green or A Worrying Sight in Wolf Park wherein you’ll meet a man who, so he says, has started photosynthesising. He’s so doing to save the planet.
Next stop is The Quiet Side of Town and there I loved He Lives on Slow Lane where in the final verse Dom says, “He’s the oldest of the wild ones / he’s the freest of the free / he’s the calmest in the forest / and he’s often called a tree.’ – a wonderful description of my favourite thing in the natural world, Wild Town or wherever.
It’s now time for Leaving Wild Town but first I certainly will do as Dom asks: ‘Let this landscape / draw itself upon your skin / marking the heart // with an X’. That shows just how much this reviewer has enjoyed a foray into such a special place where both the verbal and visual pictures leave an indelible memory. May the wild go with you too.
Another exciting collection of poetry in the publisher’s highly illustrated series, this time one that celebrates nature’s bounties through the work of twenty poets from different parts of the world, mini biographies of each being given at the end of the book, along with those of the four illustrators. Some of the work is familiar but it’s like encountering them anew, for each poem asks the reader to look at the familiar in a different way. Diana Hendry’s What Is the Pond Doing? (illustrated by Masha Manapov) particularly caught my attention having just returned from a walk that took me past a very large millpond surrounded by trees and vegetation. Here’s how her poem starts: ‘Wobbling like a jelly / Being a bucket for the rain / Sending flash-backs to the sun / Cheeking the sky . Giving the moon a bath , Letting swans, ducks and winter leaves ride on its back/ Licking the lollipop reeds’ …
Another poem – almost a prayer to nature – that I found particularly captivating today is Nature Nurtures by Jay Hulme. Here is the opening verse: Let me walk in forests, / and climb up all the trees; let me walk in fields, / and lean into the breeze.’ and the final one, “Let me make my promises / to stone and dirt and tree, / to give myself to all these things / that made humanity.’ Just beautiful. And what immersive and captivating colours Nabila Adani has used to illustrate this.
I have chosen to mention these two poems on this particular day but there isn’t a single poem that I wouldn’t gladly turn to and enjoy either for myself or share with a class of children; and each illustration too is deserving of close attention. With its kaleidoscope of colours used in the illustrations and verbal imagery that makes the reader ponder upon each subject, this is definitely an absolute must to add to home and class collections, to be visited and revisited.
A Dinosaur at the Bus Stop Kate Wakening, illustrated by Eilidh Muldoon Otter-Barry Books
Like her previous books of poems for children, Kate Wakeling’s new collection is full of musicality and playfulness: every one of the almost forty offerings cries out to be read aloud either to yourself, family members or school friends. As the subtitle says, there are ‘Poems to Have Fun With’. It’s certainly true of My Cold (which it’s suggested is read ‘aloud while pinching your nose’). Here’s how it begins; ‘I’ve got this cold / and it’s terrible. // First I had a tickle / in my throat. // Then came a trickle / of gunge / out of my left nostril.’
How many children will have thought of naming their toes, I wonder. They might after reading The Names I Give My Toes: 1. Tiny Tara / 2. Wilbur the Wonky / 3. Mr Medium /4. Fancy Fiona (who wishes she was a finger / 5) Big Angry Bob . The other five are also named and equally funky
I can’t see many people reading The Washing Machine Jive and doing as the author says ‘pull up a chair’ . I certainly couldn’t: rather I found myself needing to be on my feet moving around as I read: ’Your pyjamas are bopping, / your socks can’t stop hopping, / your T-shirts are wriggling, / and your pants? Yep, they’re jiggling.’
Much gentler is In the Quiet of the Trees, my favourite of all the poems herein and it describes beautifully the way I feel in a forest: “The forest is a special kind of still. // In the quiet of the trees, / I breathe deep as roots. // … and in the quiet of the trees / I become / a special kind of me.’
You’ll also find riddles on the theme of oceans and mini-beasts – great to inspire children to try writing their own. Also great for getting children writing is Eleven People on the Bus and there’s even a fart poem – a sensible one so we are told.
Eilidh Muldoon’s drawings augment but never detract from the inventiveness of the poems and will certainly appeal to young readers.
A book I strongly recommend adding to home bookshelves and Foundation Stage and KS1 class collections.
Courage Out Loud Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Daniel Gray-Barnett Wide Eyed Editions
Following on from Poems Aloud and Smile Out Loud is this cracking new collaboration between children’s laureate Joseph Coelho and illustrator Daniel Gray-Barnett – 25 poems of power.
Joseph uses a variety of poetic forms and structures including sestinas, rondels, pantoums and limericks, to explore being brave and facing one’s fears whatever they are. Addressing the reader directly he introduces each poem with a few lines about the kind of poem it is and how it relates to an idea, emotion or feeling.
Some of them relate to Joseph’s own experiences. The opener, Diving is one such, telling how the poet felt when jumping from a high diving board for the very first time: inner courage was certainly needed then. I love the fairytale references he uses ‘The diving board is up there , / a beanstalk above me, / a Rapunzel tower height, / a giant’s hairline high.’ and the poem goes on to mention ‘witches in my fingers’, ‘the crunch of poisoned apples’ and ends thus: ‘we’ve got the magic beans, / we’ve stolen the golden egg, / we’ve just arrived at Grandma’s house.’
Have a Little Cry is an important reminder to readers how even a little cry can make us feel better for as the introduction and final line say, ‘there is courage in every tear’.
Courage is required too when speaking out in front of an audience, in this instance, it’s being asked to read your story to the entire class ‘The classroom is a swamp / mud oozing around my legs. / The only way is forward.’ Does that sound like something you’ve experienced? Will You Read? certainly resonates with me.
So does Rollercoasters wherein young Mabel is a very reluctant rider on the rollercoaster; unlike her though I’ve never managed to overcome my fear of pretty much any fairground ride. In such instances I always used my right and my power of Saying No, responding ‘ “no” I don’t feel like doing that thing / and that’s the end of that.’
As well as reading the poems, with a reminder of poetry’s power to communicate their feelings, Joseph encourages children to create some of their own using similar structures or styles, and then to perform them aloud. (tips are given for this.) Assuredly youngsters will find lots to connect with in these poems, the mood of each being perfectly captured in Daniel Gray-Barnett’s accompanying inclusive illustrations. Our current children’s laureate has a mission to help children enjoy poetry and use it as a tool for their own creativity: Courage Out Loud will assuredly encourage that whether shared in the classroom or read at home.
A Passing On Of Shells Simon Lamb, illustrated by Chris Riddell Scallywag Press
It’s always exciting to discover new poets and Simon Lamb is a new voice on the poetry scene. For each of the fifty poems included here, he’s used just fifty words and, speaking volumes, every one of them is accompanied by an awesome illustration by the inimitable Chris Riddell.
The subjects of this cracking collection are wide-ranging and include family members, hope, nature’s wonders, growing up and the writing process. Those of us who write in any shape or form will recognise Simon’s playful words on the elusive ‘great idea’ in Searching for Ideas: ‘I glimpsed a glimmer of a great idea / just out of my eye but somewhere near / so I crept over quiet and I didn’t dare speak / … then readied my pen but alas that was when / the monster took flight once again!
I’m pretty sure too that many adults will from time to time find themselves having to emulate Macaroni Man, a brilliant chef or is he? ‘I love his macaroni! / Here’s the secret of his grub: / he cuts some slits into the lid, then microwaves the tub!’
Whatever your mood you’ll find something to enjoy here. I love the contemplative Still Earth: ‘Earth holding breath. / The sky a brilliance of blue, / its blush like newly polished brass. … No wind today. / Just stillness. / Stillness. / Just air and light and calm and earth. And in the absence of the words: / birds.’ Beautiful! So too is Chris’s accompanying illustration.
And, who wouldn’t want to have themselves described thus in the opening lines of What I Know About You: ‘You are a dazzling human, unique: a soup of swirling starlight wrapped in skin.’
Small, sparkling gems perfectly formed, every one: what better way to launch Scallywag Press’s new poetry list than this?
My Heart is a Poem various authors, various illustrators Little Tiger
Feelings come and go; most of us experience a plethora of them each day, some briefly, others are with us for longer. This collection of poems from twenty poets is an exploration of these emotions and the effects they have on us. Among the voices are those of Joseph Coelho, James Carter, Kate Wakeling, John Agard, Valerie Bloom and Coral Rumble. Some of the poems included are new to me, one such is Debjani Chatterjee’s No More … about finding a way to deal with a bully. It begins like this: ‘I knew the icy grip of fear, / I knew my heart beat like a drum, I felt a pounding in my ear / And courage crumbling in my tum.’ I suspect most of us have felt similarly troubled by fear of someone. The illustrator for this poem, Nabila Adani is also new to me.
No matter how you are feeling, as Elaine Laron says in No One Else, people can certainly tell you how to do almost anything; however you and only you own your feelings: ‘But no one else, no, no one else / Can tell you how you feel.’ Annalise Barber illustrated this one
The boy in Nikki Grimes’ Stomp describes how having been subjected to a barrage of horrible words all day at school, ‘I Come home / feet about to bleed / from angry stomping. / “Boy!” says Mom. / “Quit making all that racket.” / But what does she expect / when, day after day, / haters sling words at me / like jagged stones / designed to split my skin’. He retreats to his room and takes up his journal, ‘and unload my hurt, my rage / ’til I can breathe again. / Letter by letter, / I rediscover / my power to decide / which words matter, / which words don’t, / and whose. / Calm, now, I remember: / I get to choose.’ Powerful for the boy; powerful too for the reader.
It’s interesting to consider the situations that cause a particular feeling to manifest itself and there are a wide variety presented in these poems. Coral Rumble’s Ache is the result of disappointment at never being picked to participate in a playground game: ‘But deep inside the pit of me, I ache an ache no one can see.’ So says the child who is always left alone standing by the fence.
Wherever you open the book, you are likely to find a poem that resonates with you and it will be illustrated by one of four fantastic artists whose visual images will be powerfully evocative of the emotion the poet has written about.
Brief biographies and photos of the featured poets and illustrators are presented at the end of the book, enabling the reader to feel connected with the creators.
A great book for the classroom but equally one for individuals to curl up with and ponder.
The Real Dada Mother Goose Jon Scieszka and Julia Rothman Walker Books
I wonder who had more fun, Jon Scieszka, guided by Dadaism turning half a dozen nursery rhymes inside, outside upside down, or this reviewer reading the outcome. It is dedicated to Blanche Fisher Wright, who in 1919 illustrated the The Real Mother Goose and whose art is reproduced throughout the pages here. The whole book is just so clever, playfully subversive and absurd.
Scieszka and illustrator Julia Rothman transform each nursery rhyme starting with Humpty Dumpty, into six new versions. These renditions are a censored form where key words are covered over, a verbose version, a boring version wherein the King’s horses and men ‘Didn’t really have to do anything.’ Then come a postcard from Humpty to his parents, a version using morse code and finally a version translated into a series of five foreign languages.
Jack be Nimble is given in three coded forms; in Esperanto, there are multiple choice options, presentations as a grammatical exercise, one is given the Spoonerism treatment and a classroom book report.
I love the Jabberwocky version of Old Mother Hubbard
and in two variations, Old Mother Hubbard has morphed into ‘Old Mother Luvven’ who went to the oven ‘To get her poor iguana some crickets and mealworms.’ and ‘Young Dr Fabratory’ who went to the laboratory, ‘To refit her latest robot with a new, faster and larger memory.’ The two are left pondering however on account of the disappearance of the laboratory. Brilliant mucking about this.
Hey Diddle Diddle becomes a news article in The Daily Goose, a recipe for stew,
a map of Diddle Town, a knock knock joke, the topic for a quiz and this splendid haiku ‘Hey diddle diddle, / Cat fiddles, Cow moons, Dog laughs / “Run!” says Dish to Spoon.’
And so it goes on finally coming full circle – kind of.
Throughout Julia Rothman has fun cleverly manipulating Wright’s original illustrations and there’s a wealth of backmatter that will please older children and adults be they teachers, parents or interested others. Dadaist delight this.
The Christmas Carrolls: The Christmas Competition Mel Taylor Bessent, illustrated by Selom Sunu Farshore
This story sees the Carrolls competing for The Most Festive Family. Also in contention for winning the prize – a trip to New York City – are the Klauses.
With just two weeks to prepare for a visit from the editor of the Christmas Chronicle who will be judging the competition, the Carrolls go into frenzied preparation mode. Surely those Klauses, with a house on Candy Cane Lane couldn’t be more festive, could they? Holly is worried. Also on her mind though, are the upcoming Halloween activities her friends are all excited about. Must she miss out completely on the spooky fun to try and do her utmost to help her family win that competition? She feels somewhat conflicted, but can she make her mum and dad understand. Top of their agenda is to pay a clandestine visit to Candy Cane Lane and take a look at their opposition. Things don’t quite go to plan though. Just as they’re on the point of leaving, the front door opens and out come the Klauses – Mr, Mrs and their children Poinsettia and Toboggan.
Rather than sending them packing, Mrs K offers to show them round Klausland with its dancing penguins and private ski mountain. That’s when Holly sees a baby penguin with a broken wing and unequal size feet that the Klaus children call Nuisance. Next morning what does Holly discover in her room but the very same baby penguin, which she names Sue. Mum insists that Holly return the penguin that same day: Holly however, has other penguin plans.
Meanwhile the clock is ticking and that visit from the newspaper editor draw ever closer …
Zany seasonal reading that is full of heart, some shenanigans, a sackful of good intentions and plenty of lively illustrations from Selom Sunu.
We Wish You a Merry Christmas and other festive poems chosen and illustrated by Chris Riddell Macmillan Children’s Books
Chris Riddell has selected almost fifty festive poems, mixing lots of old favourites including Clement Clarke Moore’s A Visit from St Nicholas with some exciting new seasonal poetry. You’ll find the secular and the religious, and both serious and fun offerings herein, some of the latter being those Talking Turkeys of Benjamin Zephaniah – I definitely support ‘Turkeys United’; and Clare Bevan’s spirited Just Doing My Job about a Christmas drama performance: teachers and pupils together will enjoy this one. You’ll likely be amused by the sequel to The Twelve Days of Christmas (for which Riddell provides several superb illustrations) – it’s Dave Calder’s offering on a phone call that takes place on the thirteenth day of Christmas.
I really enjoyed another poem new to me, Dom Conlon’s Father Christmas sent me the Moon. With the world as it is at the moment though, I was especially drawn to John Agard’s Green Magi and Lem Sissay’s Let There Be Peace.
Awesomely illustrated throughout, this has something for all ages.
The Dream Train Sean Taylor and Anuska Allepuz Walker Books
Rather than sharing a story with your little one(s) before bed why not try some poems for a change. From popular picture book author Sean Taylor comes this collection of thirty poems that are perfect bedtime reading. The book has three sections: Night Arrives, Shut-Your-Eyes Time and Dream Wheels Turning. No matter if you want something magical or musical, something to give you a good giggle or to snuggle up warm with, then you will surely find it herein. Offering something snuggly and warm is The Blanket: ‘Dad says there’s a little bit / of love in every stitch. // … I’m sure it sometimes whispers “Good night, love. Sleep tight.”
From the first section, Story Time provides something musical, which is confirmed in the final verse: ‘Right round the world, / you will always hear it. / Wherever there are children, / you will always hear it … / the soft music of story time.’ If only that were so for all children everywhere.
Magical for me are the words of Once There Was: ‘The day is done. / Darkness comes. // Once there was a lake. / Now there’s a mirror of stars.’ Making this one even more magical is Anuska Allepuz’s watery twilight scene.
To induce a giggle or two you could turn to The Middle of the Night, tell your child to close eyes and imagine as you read of knives and forks asleep in the kitchen, towels asleep in the bathroom, flowers asleep in the gardens. Can they suggest what those things might be dreaming of when ‘the stars are awake in the sky.’ ?
Anuska Allepuz’s illustrations are a visual treat: their subtle, muted shades and soft focus pastels give a dreamlike quality as befits the overall theme of the book.
Add to family bookshelves if you have a young child.
On the Move: Poems About Migration Michael Rosen, illustrated by Quentin Blake Walker Books
This is a subject very close to the poet’s heart as is evident right from the start when he explores his roots. We read of the experiences of Michael Rosen’s Family and Friends in the first of the book’s four thematic sections. We read too of when he was just a boy and he writes about growing up in London after the end of WW11, and his Polish-Jewish heritage.
The poems in the second and shortest section, The War, are equally poignant comprising parental reminiscences of World War II and incidents during family travels in various parts of postwar Europe
Enormously potent is The Migrants in Me. In this third part, Michael considers missing family members. So says his father: “I had two French uncles. / They were in France / at the beginning of the war. / They weren’t there at the end.” In the next poem ‘Finding Out,’ Rosen purposefully searches out information about these uncles—Oscar and Martin, learning of old photos of them in a long-hidden box labelled Family Photos. Then come heart-wrenching poems directly addressing Oscar and Rachel, his wife; these imagine their feelings during escape, discovery by Nazis, and being sent to Auschwitz.
In On the Move Again we read of the poet’s thoughts about migration today, in particular the plight of refugees who flee their homelands in the face of war, famine or other adversity, to start life afresh. It ends with the compelling ‘Today’ – ‘What you did yesterday / can help you choose what to do now. / What you did yesterday and what you do now / can help you plan what to do tomorrow. / But you can only do something now.’
At once commemorative, historical, political and celebratory, Michael’s poems herein have a straightforward power that is echoed in Quentin Blake’s black and white illustrations that have a haunting quality of their own.
The book opens with an explanation of the difference between refugees and migrants and concludes with suggestions of organisations that support refugees.
The Big Amazing Poetry Book chosen by Gaby Morgan, illustrated by Chris Riddell Macmillan Children’s Books
What a gargantuan task Gaby Morgan gave herself in selecting the seven poems to represent each of the fifty two poets from Dom Conlon, Paul Cookson and Charles Causley to Lewis Carroll, and Liz Brownlee to Carol Ann Duffy, included here in what is called in the foreword an ‘annualogy’. Even listing all 52 poets in a short review such as this one would be a big ask but let me just say that thirty are men and twenty two are women. Of the total, forty three are still alive and writing.
Most definitely there is something, or rather several things, for every mood and as many ways or more to enjoy the book, as there are poets included in this glorious ‘galaxy’ – the word Roger McGough uses to describe the poems in his introduction. Surely poetry lovers wouldn’t want to restrict themselves to just one per day; this is a book to lose yourself in, whether or not that is your intention when you open it. You’ll find a variety of poetry styles including haiku, shape poems, ballads, tongue-twisters, raps, sonnets and more on such diverse topics as wildlife, school, magical things, special days, the weather, war and love.
On account of something I heard said by Vogue editor Edward Enninful, reading from his recent autobiography, A Visible Man and mentioning a demeaning comment somebody had said to him, on the day of writing this review, two poems absolutely shouted out to me. One was Paul Cookson’s Let No One Steal Your Dreams, the final verse of which is ‘Set your sights and keep them fixed / Set your sights on high / Let no one steal your dreams / Your only limit is the sky.’
The other was Matt Goodfellow’s Start Now that begins and ends thus, ‘ be the change / you want to see / / walk the walk / stand with me’.
Bibilophile that I am, I just have to mention our current Children’s Laureate, Joseph Coelho’s Books Have Helped Me, that concludes ‘When I thumb through a book / their pages whisper to me / that I’ll be all right.’
Each of these in its own way is empowering and empowered is the way the pages of The Big Amazing Poetry Book make me feel. To add to the delights, Chris Riddell’s intricate black and white illustrations placed over, under, through and around the poems are quite simply, brilliant.
Let’s Chase Stars Together Matt Goodfellow Bloomsbury Education
Matt Goodfellow’s is a relatively recent voice in poetry for youngsters but his is one you won’t want to miss. Included here in this new book is something for many occasions and almost every mood. There’s a good balance between reflections and celebrations of everyday school life and friendship, and presentations of deep personal issues such as divorce in the family. The latter is discussed in A Thousand Hours (spent with Dad) when on the occasion of a walk with ups and downs, ‘he tells me/ it wasn’t meant to be like this / we were supposed to be a family / a proper family / but somehow, y’know, things got in the way’. This concludes on a more upbeat note thus: ‘… right then / it doesn’t feel like he’s a dad / I’m only allowed to borrow …’ On a more humorous note is I Hope It Rains Today set in a classroom where the teacher on duty makes the decision to announce a ‘wet play’ thus allowing one member of the class at least to enjoy the opportunity to head to the school library and therein find space to read.
Courage in a Poem Little Tiger
Courage in a poem? How is that possible? In a multitude of different ways as you will discover if you read this wonderfully empowering collection that includes work from two dozen word weavers. Courage is most assuredly found as Elizabeth Avevedo says, when leaving the place you call home and after emigrating ‘attempt to bloom and blossom / and brighten a new place. … unfurl to the possibilities / of the new place you call home.’ On the other hand it might be that by sticking ‘kind words’ onto ourselves, ‘like pollen to the knee of a bee’ we might cover ourselves with the same kindness ‘nectar’ as poet Matt Goodfellow. Or perhaps as Rachel Plummer suggests, by emulating the beech tree she so wonderfully describes being fully itself in its own shape; that is the way to be ‘nothing but myself’ safe in the knowledge ‘I am. I will grow.’
Another way of finding that inner courage is through movement as the dancer in Mandy Coe’s The Cancan tells us, ‘Because when I dance I can, can do anything / when I dance.’
Equally it might be as Sophia Thakur tells us in Mother’s Eyes to see ourselves as a mother does and with such certainty as hers to love ourselves with the same strong belief.
To immerse yourself in this book is to be inspired and delighted, awed and perhaps mesmerised, by the powerfully uplifting messages and accompanying illustrations
And Everything Will be Glad To See You selected by Ella Risbridger, illustrated by Anna Shepeta Nosy Crow
This bumper volume contains more than one hundred poems and is a wonderful celebration of women writers of poetry. (There are also a few anonymous works) Taking a stand for equality now and in the future, Ella Risbridger’s main reason for this book is that historically men have been paid ‘lots more attention’ and ‘that’s not fair’! Consider this, in the UK our Poet Laureate list numbers just one woman (Carol Ann Duffy) among twenty men.
Herein you’ll likely find work by familiar writers but you’ll also be excited to make lots of new discoveries. As an erstwhile compiler of poetry anthologies I came upon a fair few I too have included in collections but rediscovering these poems in a different context brings fresh delight: one such is Beatrice Schenk de Regniers’ Keep a Poem in Your Pocket, another is Eleanor Farjeon’s Cats.
On the day of writing this I was drawn to works by Carol Ann Duffy, in particular Don’t Be Scared which opens thus, “The dark is only a blanket / for the moon to put on her bed. / … The ark is the wooden hole / behind the string of happy guitars.’
Sheer delight too is the very first poem, Nikita Gill’s brilliantly inclusive, 93 Percent Stardust, the final lines of which are ‘with souls made of flames, / we are all just stars / that have people names.’ Being unfamiliar with the work of Joy Harjo it was a wonderful surprise to come upon her exhortation to Remember,
as I certainly shall this poem, It’s one I shall return to over and over.
Anna Shepeta has done an awesome job illustrating every spread. Her mesmerising artwork thoughtfully compliments the poem or poems found at every turn of the page. Beautifully presented, this is a truly inspiring book to own, to share and to give.
You certainly won’t regret adding any, or all of these books to your poetry shelf.
Ready for Spaghetti Michael Rosen, illustrated by Polly Dunbar Walker Books
Michael Rosen’s consummate skill at creating rhymes that small children and indeed grown ups find irresistible, is legendary. He knows so well the importance of rhyme, rhythm and repetition in crafting playful compositions as demonstrated in every one of the thirty plus rhymes in this terrific book, joyfully illustrated by Polly Dunbar.
It takes youngsters through the day as they embrace those commonplace routines turning them into opportunities for spontaneous creativity and imaginative play. Whether its looking at a reflection in the mirror, rushily brushily cleaning teeth and whoosh, whoosh, whooshing and sploshy sploosh-ing in the bathroom, breakfasting on an eggy with a plate of bready soldiers, dancing with delight ( sporting a rather over-size pair of shoes), or with a pal perhaps; taking a break to talk to the sun or address a balloon, the delight – mostly – of the child participant is evident in Polly’s picture of same.
These small children, (like those I’ve taught over the years) love to converse with tiny creatures as they do in Bumblebee and Butterfly and Snail. The bumblebee one, the first verse of which is : ‘Bumblebee rumble, / Bumblebee tumble, / Buzzy Bee bumble … / Give me apple crumble!’ takes me back to Russian poet Kornei Chukovsky’s words in his seminal work, From Two to Five wherein he called young children linguistic geniuses.
No matter where you open this book you’ll find words and pictures you will love to share, be that with a class, or at home, at any time and preferably as many times as possible through the day. Don’t miss out on the opportunity: get a copy of this beautiful book. Later on those same children will pick it up and they will delight in reading it aloud to you. They’ll likely want to invent their own songs, and create word pictures and colourful drawings as well.
Smile Out Loud Joseph Coelho and Daniel Gray-Barnett Wide Eyed Editions
I’m sure that like me, many others have in the past couple of years of mandatory mask wearing in so many places, wondered how to show somebody that we are giving them a smile. Perhaps if I’d had a copy of Smile Out Loud then I could have performed one of Joseph’s 25 ‘happy poems’ poems in a shop or elsewhere. I wonder what the reaction would have been to The Dinosaur way of walking funny, which is to Pull your trousers up / as far as they will go, / stick your bottom out / and walk like a chicken / … But instead of clucking – / … let yourself roar! / Like a dinosaur, / … a roar dinosaur! Then there’s The Ballerina way that involves a turn, a spin, a leap followed by Plié! Plié! Petit / Jeté / flutter and glide / the day away.
I’m always plugging the power of the imagination so I really like Imagination Running Free where the instructions are to tell the audience for a read aloud of this poem to close their eyes and imagine the scenarios presented by Imagine your legs / are two conker trees! Imagination running free. // Imagine your knees / are stripy like bees! / Imagination running free. // Imagine you’re running with / toes wet / legs wooden / knees stripy! I love too how Daniel Gray-Barnett has clearly let his imagination run free for this accompanying illustration.
There are poems to read and act out in a group, one or two to inspire readers to create poems of their own, a funny one that uses spoonerisms and lots more besides. Certainly you should find something to help cheer up not only yourself but those who hear the tongue-twisters, riddles and giggle inducers. So, get a copy for home or school and spread a little sunshine thanks to Joseph’s words and Daniel’s lively, inclusive illustrations.
Marshmallow Clouds Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek, illustrated by Richard Jones Walker Books
Subtitled ‘Poems Inspired by Nature’, this is a dreamlike, often pensive collection of thirty poems, each a beautiful word picture placed under one of four elemental section headings: Fire, Water, Air, Earth and all intended, as Kooser says in his afterword, to “encourage you to run with your own imagination, to enjoy what you come up with.”
Being a tree person I was immediately drawn to Trees, the final four lines of which are: They don’t ask for much, a good rain now and then, and what they like most are the sweet smells of the others, and the warm touch of the light, and to join the soft singing that goes on and on. Beautiful words and equally beautiful art by Richard Jones, whose illustration here reminded me so much of one of the places where I pause to sit on my walk and look up at the surrounding understory.
Tadpole too is a poem I found great delight in reading, having recently watched a pool full /of swimming tadpoles, / the liveliest of all punctuation.
No matter where you open the book though, you will find something that’s a joy to read aloud again, and again; something thoughtful and thought-provoking, something likely to make you look at things around you differently. What more can one ask?
All About Cats Frantz Wittkamp (trans. David Henry Wilson), illustrated by Axel Scheffler Macmillan Children’s Books
As an ailurophobe I wasn’t predisposed to like this book, but on the other hand I’m a poetry lover and Axel Scheffler’s illustrations are terrific fun so the positives have it. And David Henry Wilson’s translations from the original German work well too and rhyme well. Do I detect a touch of the Eleanor Farjeons in Cats are … Sleepy?
From the fourteen four-line poems herein we discover a fair bit about cats, their habits and their predilections. They enjoy reading, arithmetic – yes really, painting, making mischief, playing toss with a ball or perhaps a small rodent if they can get their paws on one; and when it comes to food, each one has a favourite – it’s not always fish. Parent cats show love towards their offspring, working together to keep things sweet between mums and dads. However I definitely disapprove of certain tomcats – those that net butterflies and keep them as pets, whereas the bath routine at the end of the day gets an endorsement from this reviewer, and how wonderfully economical with water they are in Axel’s illustration at least (3 in a tub together.) But no matter if said moggies are making music or celebrating a birthday with rhubarb juice and fishcakes, or even feeling a tad grumpy if caught in a rain shower, they make the best of the situation, as is evident in Axel’s splendidly droll scenes and tiny vignettes.
To foster a love of language in young children, cat lovers or not, share the rhymes and playful pictures with them: perhaps some of them can come up with own cat capers too.
Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes Axel Scheffler Macmillan Children’s Books
This treasury of almost sixty nursery rhymes is linked by eighteen short stories written by Alison Green, the first of which sets the scene by introducing Mother Goose herself. She lays three eggs and it’s to her goslings the rhymes were told and then eventually written down by a wise old heron. (I love that.) It’s also her’s and her goslings’ activities that are related in the stories.
You’ll find lots of your favourites here: I Had a Little Nut Tree,
Miss Muffet, Jack and Jill, The Grand Old Duke of York, Polly (who puts the kettle on), Old King Cole, Humpty Dumpty, Sing a Song of Sixpence, Hey Diddle Diddle
and lastly some bedtime ones including Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Wee Willie Winkie, still dashing round town in that nightgown.
Every rhyme and story is humorously illustrated in such a way by Axel Scheffler that the wit behind the words is evident. A super present to give a new baby and a book to acquaint preschool children with the richness of nursery rhyme language that sadly, many of them are unfamiliar with.
Thanks to Macmillan Children’s Books for sending both titles for review.
Stop the Clock! Pippa Goodhart and Maria Christania Tiny Owl
I do so appreciate young Joe’s frustration when everything he does has to be rushed. First it’s mum with a myriad of things on her mind, telling him to hurry up before they set off for school; then the walk itself is done at a run in case they’re late. Worse still, when he gets thoroughly immersed in the art topic Mr Khan has set the class, he’s told to stop and he’s nowhere near finished.
“STOP THE CLOCK!” he cries in sheer frustration. By now everybody else has complied with the instructions, but Joe – and who can blame him – adds his crying sister to his picture, picks it up and walks out. Now this is where readers, especially adults, will have to adopt that willing suspension of disbelief mode, for Joe leaves the school premises and heads to the street where he kneels down and continues drawing.
There is so much to see from ground level: so much to interpret about what’s going on and so many wonderful details to add to that picture of his. He even finds something that his sister must have dropped in the rush to reach school on time. Finally with picture complete to his satisfaction, Joe goes back to the classroom, leaves his picture with the others and gives instructions to the clock to restart. Come home-time, after a slight pause, four happy people walk home together.
A heartfelt look at the busy lives that most of us live, often trying to do more than one thing at a time and in danger of missing out on those quality, slow moments we all need. In the past two years, the majority of adults at least, have come to appreciate the importance of time to stop and stare. With more and more people now back working full time as well as juggling child care and more, it’s crucial that everyone, young and not so young, has time to appreciate the world around without feeling guilty about doing so. Author Pippa Goodhart and debut illustrator Maria Christania capture this need so beautifully in this picture book – it’s a wonderful example of how some good things have come from the lockdowns we’ve been subjected to.
Also showing the importance of taking time to appreciate the wonders of the natural world is:
A Walk Through Nature Libby Walden and Clover Robin Little Tiger (Caterpillar Books)
Through twelve, two verse poems and beautiful collage style illustrations with some facts tucked away behind flaps and die-cuts that allow readers to glimpse (or sometimes guess) what lies beneath, author Libby Walden and artist Clover Robin take us through the countryside presenting the numerous transformations that take place throughout the year.
No matter where one looks there’s much to wonder at. We visit a field in springtime as the flowers are starting to bloom in their myriad colours; look up high where birds fly seeking nesting places in the trees; stand at the edge of a peaceful pond wherein tadpoles are hatching and baby duckling are learning to swim.
Other habitats we visit are a woodland and a beach in summertime; a forest area and a mountainside through which a river flows in autumn, and, as winter arrives, swallows taking flight to warmer climes and foxes heading to their earths and as day turns to night, the emergence of nocturnal creatures ‘neath the silvery stars.
Containing a wealth of nature-related vocabulary, both gently educative and awe inspiring, this immersive book, now in paperback is a lovely introduction to nature poetry and nature itself.
Polka Dot Poems Zaro Weil, illustrated by Lucy Wynne Troika
Among Zaro Weil’s 100 nature haiku you’ll meet all manner of weird and wonderful beasties large and small from all over the world as well as flora of many sorts and other inanimate natural things too. I encountered several creatures that are new to me, one of which is the Fossa
another is Zebra duiker ( an antelope residing in the rainforests of the western coasts of Africa) ‘ black-striped / best mates / meander under /green canopy of /gold-striped / sun ‘.
Equally worthy of our attention though is this common or garden oh so bountiful Thistle ‘seeds for birds / leaves for bugs / fluff for nests / nectar-spiked / flowered // giving plant’.
Another is Spider – ‘smart / spinning your own paths / criss-crossing the cosmos / thin thread / by / thin thread’.
Among the inanimate yet brought to life through words is something we’ve all experienced countless times – the coming of a new day: Light ‘oh! / I remember you / morning sun-great / all a-whirl / through my window’.
In stark contrast using the same number of syllables is this contemplation of a Goblin shark, ‘ancient living fish/ your sword mouth/ parts water/ swims through/ millions of years’. Who would not be awed by this ferocious creature sometimes called a ‘living fossil’?
Again, using just seventeen syllables each time, Zaro draws attention to things ever present in our lives such as Pebble ‘so many pebbles / so many years / quietly crunching / underfoot’ and Moon – ‘palest puff / in / just-night sky / that you? // of course / I spy your / crescent wisp’.
No matter where they open this book young readers will find something to delight in; something of which Zaro in her wonderful words has captured its very essence, while Lucy Wynne brings out the gentle humour and playfulness of the writing in her gorgeous illustrations.
Don’t miss the extras – there’s a concluding section of ‘amazing facts about some of the weird and wonderful creatures’ including the Patagonian mara, the Venezuelan poodle moth and the star-nosed mole – wonderful creatures all.
When Poems Fall from the Sky Zara Weil, Illustrated by Junli Song ZaZa Kids
During the past year and a half a great many of us have found that walking in nature has both uplifted and calmed us: when we’ve so badly needed a boost, nature has been there for us inviting us to slow right down or stop and let the flora and fauna work their magic. As we read this treasure of a book, Zara Weil reminds us of those sights and sounds and introduces the joys of many others in this mix of poems, rhymes, haiku, raps, story poems and short plays, that were inspired by Kew Gardens where the poet spent time fairly recently; and having worked in the Kew herbarium on a gap year I can totally understand how Kew made her feel.
It’s clear that the poet observes with all her senses as she gently nudges and occasionally urges readers to see things differently, to discover new ways to look, feel and listen. She helps us to fine tune our ears to the various voices of nature that she has heard including that of a Butterfly’s Song, various birds such as a nightingale, and the Jay that acts its part along with Oak in That’s what friends are for – what delight this would give children taking on those roles in a read aloud, and a wonderful learning experience too.
The same is true of another ‘Mother Nature Production’ Oh Happy Day – a fig and wasp play that is a celebration of the amazing pollination partnership between wasps and fig trees.
It’s impossible to choose an utmost favourite in this collection but as a life-long lover of trees I was struck by the way Zaro captures their wonder and their ability to hold memories in Tree’s Story; ‘for who else still breathing / has been a part of long ago / who else / holds it written in / rings of memory / for anyone to read / in the far future ‘ – in those lines too (and throughout) is a reminder of our interconnectedness.
For its sheer exuberance and sheer delight in playful language, I absolutely relished Bug Parade with its ten quintillion minibeasts – ‘They whizzed by all zipping / glittering then flittering / diving and gliding / whoops sometimes colliding’. Brilliant!
Certainly a poem to make you laugh and perhaps, dance; but there are also poems to move you within, others to make you care and to think deeply.
Surely though, every one is a demonstration of the fact that in nature there is SO much to cherish and to wonder at; it’s as though nature itself has been given voice herein to give hope, to guide us ever to watch, to listen and to remember our role as guardians and stewards of our awesome planet.
Thoughtfully and beautifully illustrated by Junli Song, this is a must have book to cherish and return to over and over.
At the Height of the Moon edited by Annette Roeder, Alison Baverstock and Matt Cunningham Prestel
This book draws on artistic and literary traditions from all parts of the world, going back centuries to offer children a pre-bedtime experience that presents works of art alongside poems and short pieces of fiction including the occasional rather eerie folktale. There are six thematic sections: Twilight, Dreamland, Moonlit Menagerie, Creepy Crawlies and Things that Go Bump in the Night, Minds Ablaze and, Midnight and Magic.
The editors have clearly cast their literary nets far and wide including recent poems from Simon Armitage whose To Do List is set opposite Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare which I think if I looked at it for too long, would give me a nightmare, James Carter’s The ReallyReallyReallyTrulyTrueTruth About … Teddy Bears which faces The Bear Family, for me, a much more alluring painting by Alexej von Jowlensky,
Benjamin Zephaniah’s Nature Trail, about wildlife in his garden, and Wendy Cope’s Huff set opposite Paul Klee’s The Goldfish. Then there are others that go way, way back: Sappho’s Fragment V1 ’Nightingale, herald of spring / With a voice of longing …’ ; Shakespeare is represented by lines from The Tempest beginning ‘Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, / Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.’ It’s good to see Australian Judith Wright’s Rainforest sharing a page with that.
Two of my favourite poets that I first came across way back when I was at school, are here to my delight; there’s Robert Frost’s After Apple Picking, and Edward Thomas’ The Owl, beneath which is a well known anonymous owl poem.
(There are seven anon. pieces including a somewhat scary fairy tale from the early Mansi hunting people and another fairy tale from Siberia.)
Among the artists’ reproductions are works from Vincent van Gogh, Henri Rousseau’s Carnival Evening, Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, Georgia O’Keefe’s A White Camelia and in the same story, Ladder to the Moon. Not all the art will be to any one reader’s taste, though I’m sure everyone will come across images both verbal and visual that they will treasure (although the entire selection is rather Eurocentric and could have been rather more inclusive): I came across some delights new to me including Linda Wolfsgruber’s A Lullaby for Bruno juxtaposed with an extract from Alice in Wonderland wherein the White Rabbit speaks.
The Beasts Beneath Our Feet James Carter and Alisa Kosareva Little Tiger
‘Beneath our feet / way deep and down / are beasts asleep / in the cold, dark ground … / They’re skeletons now … they’re fossils, bones. / They’re silent, still; / in a prison of stone.’ Poet James Carter then invites us to dig down deep, visit the various layers of the Earth while also being a time traveller able to meet all kinds of exciting creatures on our prehistoric adventure.
First come the trilobites, erstwhile crawlers on the ocean floor. Next come the scary-looking pointy-toothed metoposaurus, a fish-eater somewhat resembling a crocodile. None the less, I wouldn’t fancy a face-to-face encounter. More to my liking is the Meganeuropsis, the biggest ever bug, buzzing around – an early giant dragonfly this.
Next are the dinosaurs be they the herbivores such as Diplodocus; the bones crunchers such as T.Rex and the winged Archaeopteryx that may have been able to take to the air on its feathery appendages. Moving north to chilly climes of everlasting winter lived herds of wooly mammoths with heir super-thick coats and ginormous tusks.
All these beasties have become extinct, wiped out on account of earthquakes, floods, disease, comets maybe, or even the poisonous lava of volcanoes.
All this information has been unearthed thanks to the work of palaeontologists investigating fossil evidence and now as James reminds us in the final part of his rhyming narrative, we can see some of these fossils in a museum; or perhaps find our own by taking a spade and digging deep.
The last spread is a kind of visual timeline of our prehistoric adventure showing all the creatures mentioned in the text.
The countless young dinosaur lovers will relish this time-travelling foray into Earth’s ancient past with James’ lyrical descriptions that really bring the creatures back to life, and illustrations by Alisa Kosareva, whose magical, dramatic scenes of all those mentioned in the text and more, are superbly imagined.
Yapping Away Joshua Seigal, illustrated by Sarah Horne Bloomsbury Education
There are playful poems aplenty in 2020 winner of the Laugh Out Loud Book Awards, Joshua Seigal’s latest poetry collection; it’s wonderfully witty and cleverly creative to boot. As ever, he uses the 3Rs crucial to making children readers, and assuredly they have that same effect when it comes to making them poetry enthusiasts as well.
I absolutely love the surprise element in many of Joshua’s poems: there’s the sudden change of heart in New Baby wherein the older sibling moves from ‘You grumble and gripe / and you grizzle all day. / I hate you, new baby / so please go away.’ in the first verse to the final ‘I know Mummy loves you / and Daddy does too. / I love you, new baby! / You’re lovely! It’s true!’
Then there’s the passionate Did I Ever Tell You … wherein the author pours his heart out as he continues ‘ … how much I love you? // I love you more / that the yawn / of the morning sun. ‘ … There are more verses in similar vein until the final ‘You / are / my // – – – – – !’ Can you guess the object of the love?
There are also some smashing shape poems: here’s one
and others with terrific word play, Shapes being one.
However not everything is playful: anything but is the decidedly pensive Drawing My Grandma. I love too, the thought-provoking Inside with its circularity; Sad in which the speaker is unaccountably so feeling, is another, it conveys an emotion that strikes us all from time to time.
As does that summed up in The Grouchy Song: I’m reminded of that one whenever I listen to the news these days. And if the suggestions proffered therein don’t work sufficiently then I’ll quickly turn to Magic! for an antidote.
I could go on and mention pretty much every single one of the almost 50 poems in this smashing book but better I leave you with Joshua’s words to embark on The Reading Journey something you’ll do if you get hold of a copy of your own and ‘Embark in the dark / on a sparkling adventure. / Glide on the tide / to the rhythm of words. ‘ …
I must mention too, Sarah Horne’s drawings that are appropriately quirky and a delight in themselves.
There’s no doubt that youngsters will feel inspired to take up Joshua’s “Let’s Get Writing!’ invitation that comes after the poems; he gives some helpful poetry starters there, though there are plenty offered by his poems themselves – that’s so long as said children have turned down this Invitation:
If you want children to find delight in language, poetry in particular., this book is a MUST.
Caterpillar Cake Matt Goodfellow, illustrated by Krina Patel-Sage Otter-Barry Books
This is performance poet Matt Goodfellow’s second poetry book and it’s aimed at younger children. Embracing a wide range of topics in his sixteen poems – playing on the beach, space, wild animals, play, movement,
school related things – a visit from the school photographer, a classroom carpet session for instance, as well as things related to the natural world. Here are the opening verse and the final one of My Shell: ‘there is a shell / alone on a beach / over the sand-dunes / out of my reach // we’ll sing of the sun / and the salt and the sea / together forever / just my shell and me’.
Perfect for reading aloud to young children and once they’re familiar, perhaps those in KS1 could read some to one another. Which ever you do, take time not just to enjoy Matt’s writing but also debuting illustrator Krina Patel-Sage’s inclusive, vibrant digitally created illustrations. So, if your taste is for pebble skimming, a slice of chocolate caterpillar cake, the smashing word play of Kitty Cat, or a gentle River Lullaby at the end of the day, you’ll find it herein.
If you want to engender a love of language, this is definitely one to add to early years settings, KS1 classrooms, and family bookshelves (if you have little ones).
The Language of Cat Rachel Rooney, illustrated by Ellie Jenkins Otter-Barry Books
This is a reissue of Rachel’s first and award winning collection of poems and what a smasher it is, brilliantly inventive and inviting readers to look at the world and things in it, in an entirely fresh way.
Some such as Post are deliciously droll. Take this wherein a queen, ‘Fed up bored, decided to quit / so used her head and some royal spit. / Flicked through a book, picked a random address : / 5, The High Street, Inverness. / Stuck her face on a card, destination beneath. Does one fancy a swap, Ms Morag Mackeith? / Posted if off, didn’t delay.’ (Sadly however said queen receives no response.)
It’s absolutely impossible to choose favourites, I’m likely to change my mind at each reading of the book but today some I especially enjoyed are Defending the Title which begins ‘I am the word juggler’ and concludes ‘I am the champion’ both of which are entirely applicable to the author.
O the Wonderful shape of an O is a superb example of a shape poem –
Gravity made me smile: the thought of ‘ripe conkers, bombs, cow dung, / those pencils we lose / from coat pockets, high jumpers / like large kangaroos, / confetti, leaves, litter, a melee of fruit, / all those sticks thrown for puppies / and those footballs we boot.’ all whirling around in space if it weren’t for gravity.
Predictive Text really made me laugh as I’m forever cursing my Mac for changing things I write and need always to be watchful and check blogposts at the last minute (pooing and weeing just now got altered to posting and seeing). Then there’s Bookmark that strongly appeals to my bookish nature.
Altogether the book’s a testament to the power of language and its versatile nature; there’s something to please all tastes here. Quirky stylised drawings by Ellie Jenkins grace many of the pages.
Beautiful Day! Rodoula Pappa and Seng Soun Ratanavanh Cameron Kids
In the company of a small child we experience the seasons’ riches through a sequence of twenty haiku-like poems. Rodoula Pappa’s words are as if spoken by said child, whose activities we follow starting with Spring: ’Beautiful day! / Teach me, too, how to fly, / mother swallow.’ are illustrated in Seng Soun Ratanavanh’s richly patterned scenes beautifully crafted as if from Japanese washi paper.
There’s much to enjoy no matter the season: Summer offers lush peaches, somnolent-sounding music and ‘Among the reeds, / a new galaxy – / fireflies.’ as well as days by the sea.
Come autumn there’s an abundance of busy chipmunks and dahlias bloom prolifically and its time for the wild geese to travel.
With winter soft snow falls and there are preparations for Christmas, while ‘In the rock’s crack, / deep green, full of light – / winter blossom.’
There’s a feeling of serenity about the entire book; it’s as though the words are asking us to slow down, stand and stare, imbibing the beauty of the natural world so wonderfully depicted, no matter what time of year.
What a lovely starting point for children’s own seasonal reflections this book would make in a primary classroom.
Take Off Your Brave Nadim, illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail Walker Books
The Russian writer, storyteller and poet Kornei Chukovsky talked of young children as ‘linguistic geniuses’ playful and creative users of language and this book of poems by four year old, Nadim is a wonderful demonstration of this.
Responding to prompts from his mother, with the initial guidance of poetry teacher, Kate Clanchy (who has written an insightful foreword to this book) the little boy shared his thoughts about a variety of things from his feelings on returning home from nursery school, his best friend,
his mum, doing something scary, his wish. To read each of these is to share in something of how a four or five year old sees the world (something that I as a nursery and reception teacher for many years particularly enjoy); there’s no attempt at emulating adult poetry, rather, this is a child’s voice capturing those moments of happiness, joy, love, loneliness, peacefulness, togetherness, hopes, fears and dreams.
‘You always have sad moments / Happy moments / Nice moments / Angry moments // And when you smush those moments together / They make a great feeling / Called: / ABRACADABRADOCUOUS.’
And rest assured everyone has indestructible love to share for ‘Baddies love their baddie friends / Even very baddie ones. // Nothing can make love disappear / Not spells / Not magic / Not mermaids / Not anything. … ‘
Accompanied by Yasmeen Ismail’s illustrations – who better to capture young children being themselves – this is a lovely demonstration that poetry is for everybody.
Being Me Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Laura Mucha, illustrated by Victoria Jane Wheeler Otter-Barry Books
I’ve tended to use picture books to open up discussions about feelings in the classroom, especially with younger children but now this, subtitled “Poems about Thoughts, Worries and Feelings’ is a superb anthology of poems by three accomplished contemporary poets that would definitely work equally well with children from KS1 up.
Speaking directly to youngsters are almost fifty poems focussing on the topics that they care deeply about and unless they have opportunities to talk about how they feel about say, loss or sadness, feelings of isolation can be the result.
One way to counteract such feelings is to take a walk in nature as Matt suggests in Forest Song: ‘there is music in the forest / every leaf a different note / as the wind -conducted branches / play the tune the raindrops wrote // so, walk beneath the canopy / and know that you belong / to the purest ancient melody / as forest sings its song’. I’m sure those words will resonate with all of us after everything that’s happened during the past year when so many of us have found comfort in the natural world.
Another of Matt’s poems talks about those awful butterflies that are the result of first day nerves and how one understanding teacher, Mr Mawhinney made all the difference.
Books are one of my first go to comfort places and Liz’s In the Heart of a Book speaks to the power of story; Here’s part of it : ‘ I found myself a story / with a place in me to store it // I found myself a wide, new world / so set off to explore it //… I found a pool of sadness / and the strength to manage it // … I found place to rest my head // while my worries unplug / I found a curl of comfort / where each word was a hug // … I found a pair of magic wings / and flew into the light’
Feeling alone in your sadness? What better place to visit than Laura’s The Land of the Blue to know that feeling sad is OK. The final verse says this: ‘Across the valley it waits for you,/ a place they call The Land of Blue / and going there will help you know / how others feel when they are low.’
Sometimes there’s nothing better than the kindness of a Friend as Laura shows here:
Discovering your own kindness within and sharing it with others is equally powerful as the final words in Liz’s Kindness acknowledges ‘and where you give it grows and grows / until one day it overflows ‘
Finally (although I could go on talking about every poem in this book) in Bottled Up Laura highlights how crucial it is to be able to open up about whatever it is that’s troubling you …
Very much in tune with the feelings the three poets have written of are the quirky black and white illustrations by new illustrator Victoria Jane Wheeler; and the book concludes with a note from developmental psychologist Dr Karen Goodall that includes some suggestions as to how an adult might open up a discussion.
A special book that I strongly recommend for both school and home collections.
Coyote’s Soundbite John Agard and Piet Grobler Lantana Publishing
Planet Earth is in a terrible state on account of the thoughtless environmental damage caused by human actions. The earth-goddesses call a conference to which every female creature is invited to discuss what should be done.
When he learns that it’s a females only affair, Coyote is disappointed and an impulsive decision sees him borrowing his wife’s blue dress, sandals and bag. Thus attired, he manages to gain admission.
In turn each of the goddesses gives a speech about what they’ve contributed to life,
expressing their disappointment at how humanity has subsequently treated the planet, and then it’s time for questions.
Nothing is forthcoming so Coyote decides to put forward a suggestion, “Excuse me, ladies! / Forgive my interjection, / but from my study of the human breed, / I’ll say a soundbite is what you ladies need!”
Everyone is in total agreement and Coyote returns home.
Imagine his surprise to discover his wife clad in his suit. She explains that she’s just come from a males only earth-gods conference and guess what: she too made a soundbite suggestion, which goes to show that the way ahead is “Earth-lovers of the world unite! / Mother Nature is always right!”
With its diverse selection of mythological characters, John Agard’s engaging rhythmic narrative poem packs a powerful punch as it imparts its crucial environmental message. Brimming over with energy, Piet Grobler’s trademark scribbly, collage style mixed media illustrations are a spirited complement to the text, adding to the impact of this thought-provoking, picture book.
Here are two recent poetry collections from Macmillan Children’s Books – thanks to the publishers for sending them for review
A Poem for Every Spring Day ed. Allie Esiri
This is the third in the seasonal series – almost every one of which is taken from Allie Esiri’s A Poem for Every Day of the Year and A Poem for Every Night of the Year and once again it’s brimming over with poetry to lift your spirits. Among the offerings herein you’ll certainly find many old favourites – lots took me right back to my days in primary school and even before that when my dad read A.A. Milne and Lewis Carroll aloud to me, as well as unearthing some new treasures. As with the Autumn and Winter books, there are two poems for each day from 1st March through to the end of May and again Allie provides an introductory paragraph for each of her selections. Most of us associate spring with new life and yes, there are plenty of entries reflecting that aspect of the season but it’s more than just longer days, birdsong and buds opening and A Poem for Every Spring Day reflects this. There are poems commemorating specific occasions such as Rachel Rooney’s First Word (After Helen Keller) where she writes of Helen feeling water flowing from a pump with one hand while the letters for ‘water’ were spelt on her other palm. That moment took place on April 5th. Another one that is hugely moving and also new to me is Duranka Perera’s Bitter State. The poet is also a doctor living in the UK and native of Sri Lanka where horrendous terrorist attacks took place on 30th March. It begins thus: ‘I was angry when it happened. / I was angry when the numbers continued to rise. / I was angry when bitter tongues lashed old wounds. / I was angry when a dying monument drew more /money than / The dying themselves.’ From John Agard to William Wordsworth, whatever your taste in poetry, there will be plenty to savour in this collection.
The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems chosen by Brian Moses
Poet Brian Moses has chosen an assortment of splendidly silly poems for this compilation of over a hundred giggle inducers. The selection has ten sections, each named with a line from or title of, one of the poems included. Thus for example we have ‘The red ear blows its nose’ from Robert Schechter’s What’s Mine for the first – Silly and Even Sillier Poems. The teacher part of me wanted to turn next to the Headmaster’s Welcome where among the thirteen I totally loved Brian’s own The School Goalie’s Reasons … The writer/reviewer part of me just had to turn next to the Fantasy and Fairy Tales offerings where there are some terrific four liners including Rachel Rooney’s Epitaph for Humpty Dumpty: ‘ Beneath this wall there lies the shell / Of someone who had talents. / But (as you can probably tell) / One of them wasn’t balance.’ What a great starting point for a bit of epitaph writing in the classroom using a nursery rhyme theme. On the subject of the classroom, in the Funny Poems About Poems section is Joshua Seigal’s terrific I Don’t Like Poetry that offers a smashing lesson on similes, metaphors, alliteration, onomatopoeia and repetition. An invitation to youngsters to play around with words for sure. Should your taste be more for pets, dinosaurs, family, space or things spooky, never fear: you’ll find all these covered too. We all need something to cheer us up at the moment so why not start with this collection: it will long outlast the current pandemic however.
Red Reading Hub - Jillrbennett's Reviews of Children's Books 