Category Poetry

Wise Up! Wise Down!

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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

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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.

Find Peace in a poem

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Find Peace in a poem
Little Tiger

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

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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.

You Stole My Name

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You Stole My Name
Dennis McGregor
Blue Star Press

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 / ’Tis The Season

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

A book to keep and a book to give.

Who Let the Words Out?

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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

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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.

Our Earth is a poem

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Our Earth is a poem
Little Tiger

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 / We Wish You a Merry Christmas and other festive poems

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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

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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

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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

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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 / Courage in a Poem / And Everything Will Be Glad To See You

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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

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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 / Marshmallow Clouds

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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 / Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes

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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! / A Walk Through Nature

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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! / Take Off Your Brave

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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

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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

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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.

A Poem for Every Spring Day / The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems

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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.

Stars with Flaming Tails

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Stars with Flaming Tails
Valerie Bloom, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max
Otter-Barry Books

How exciting to have a book of new poems from Valerie Bloom after quite a long while; but Stars With Flaming Tails with more than sixty offerings was definitely worth the wait.

Arranged under five headings – Family and Friends, Fun with Forms, Our World, Animals and Unbelievable?, this is a veritable treasure trove of delight encompassing such diverse topics as pancakes and piranhas, the elements, grandparents, siblings, parents,

the ordinary and the extraordinary (though nothing is the former when Valerie works her magic on it).

You’ll laugh, feel saddened, ponder upon, puzzle over, empathise, wonder, and with all your senses aroused, discover many things anew. It’s amazing how totally different moods can be evoked by just four lines; take for instance Eclipse ‘ A huge space giant saw the sun, / he thought it was a currant bun, / so he took an enormous bite / and turned the daytime into night.’

and Dawn – ‘Sunlight pries open / the hands of the mimosa / which all night had been clasped / in prayer.’

On the shortest day of the year, that has also been extremely wet and cheerless, one of the poems that really made me smile ends thus: ‘But all’s well, we’re rich and happy (so I had to beg his pardon), / and he’s charging folk a pound to see the dead giant in the garden.’ Can you guess who the ‘he’ is in this one – hint it’s a character from a traditional tale.

No matter how you’re feeling though, you’ll discover something to suit your mood, or to lift you out of it perhaps. Ken Wilson-Max’s black and white illustrations serve the poems well providing an additional reason to smile wherever you open the book.

Weird Wild & Wonderful

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Weird Wild & Wonderful
James Carter, illustrated by Neal Layton
Otter-Barry Books

James Carter’s selection of his own works might be divided into the three sections of its title, but for me, every one of the fifty herein is, in its own way, wonderful.

The first part – ‘Weird’ – contains those poems that their author calls daft or cheeky, or perhaps both. My favourite is Spot the Fairytales (aka Ten Tiny Senryū) or 17 syllable present tense haiku. Here are some examples: Enter if you dare – / three breakfasts; one broken chair. / Off to bed? / Beware … // A cute bird calling / an urgent word of warning – / ‘THE SKY IS FALLING!!’ // … She’s poshed up in bling – / grooving with the future king. / Slipper fits. KERCHING!

Among the daft is a clever shape poem (one of several ) called Lullaby for a Woolly Mammoth that you can sing to the tune of Twinkle, twinkle …

Among the entirely new poems and included in the ‘Wild’ section is The Elephant’s ODE to the DUNG BEETLE. That one really made me laugh and I love Neal Layton’s illustration of same.

Not all the poems are light-hearted though. Anything but is another shape poem Who Cares? … a stark warning against the thoughtless and selfish ways people are harming our precious wildlife.

In the final ‘Wonderful’ part are some of James’ science poems and quiet poems. One of the latter that spoke to me immediately is another new, and timely one – It’s … Kindness. On this particular day I’m also drawn to That’s Poetry, Where Do You Get Your Ideas From? and, School Library!. Here are its first and last verses: Where are doorways made of words? / That open into other worlds? / Welcoming all boys and girls. // SCHOOL LIBRARY // … Tempted? Go on, have a look. / You never know, you might get hooked. / Your whole life changed by just one book … // SCHOOL LIBRARY! Who knows? It just might be this smashing book of poems – there’s something for all tastes therein: it most definitely hooked this reviewer. The book fairy in another of Neal’s terrific illustrations awaits to lure you in.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright!

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Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright!
selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Britta Teckentrup
Nosy Crow

I love getting poetry anthologies to review, for despite owning a iarge bookcase crammed with books of poems (for both adults and children) and having compiled a fair number of the latter myself, I always make some exciting new discoveries.

What joy then, to have a bumper compilation such as Fiona’s offering, an animal poem for every day of the year, with a stunningly beautiful illustration from Britta gracing every spread.

Name an animal and more than likely you will find it featured somewhere in this collection; and you’ll find a creature (sometimes several) for almost every letter of the alphabet with the notable exceptions of q – this has Tony Chen’s Question: ‘As asphalt and concrete / Replace bushes and trees, / As highways and buildings / Replace marshes and woods, / What will replace / The song of birds?’ , u (there is a poem but it’s an extract from John Bunyan’s Upon a Snail) and x is not represented at all.

Whether your preference is for creatures great or creatures small, feathered, scaled, smooth-skinned or spiney you will be satisfied. Having seen the bird she writes of standing in the rain on my walk yesterday I absolutely loved discovering this new to me poem of Roberta Davis: ‘Perfectly still / in the falling snow / grey heron’

I also heard on that same walk but didn’t see, a Woodpecker, the subject of John Agard’s wonderful poem – another new discovery for me, the first verse of which is ‘Carving / tap/tap / music / out of / tree trunk / keep me / busy / whole day / tap/tap / long ‘

Despite summer now being over for this year, there are still plenty of bees, wasps and other small insects about including the bees that George Szirtes writes of in The Bee’s Knees: ‘Great hairy knees bees have as they squat / in the flowers then push off with a spring, / all six knees pumping and shoving. With so much power they’re soon airborne, resilient, / muscular, adrift. // The bee’s knees. // Brilliant. ‘ And brilliant that surely is. Henceforth I’ll look anew at bees.

There’s more about minibeasts and their knees in Dorothy Aldis’ Singing: ‘Little birds sing with their beaks / In the apple trees; / But little crickets in the grass / Are singing with their knees. ‘

Interestingly October has four wasp poems though I’m less well disposed towards those buzzers as I have a wasps’ nest all a-buzz outside one of the bedroom windows; so I really appreciate the opening lines of Carol Ann Duffy’s The Wasp: ‘Help me to love the wasp, / help me to do that thing – / to admire the raspy buzz / of its wings, to grow fond / of its droning whinge.’

Having spent most of this review talking of creatures small, I should finish with a poem about a large one and a favourite of mine – the subject of another new delight for me; it’s Liz Brownlee’s An Elephant is Born: ‘Night holds them safe / the moon cloud gleams, / deep in the darkness / of soft breath and dreams, // the elephant mother / greets her new son, / with a tender and gentle, / low, soft hum, // strokes his face / the night-left long, / and sings her newborn / elephant song.’

Finally, I must endorse what Nosy Crow’s Louise Bolongaro says in her introduction, ‘Poems and reading “matter” more than ever but so does the natural world. If this book can nurture a love of the animal kingdom, then maybe it will also help create the conservationists of the future.’ If that isn’t a reason to go out and buy a copy to give as well as one to keep, then what is?

Poems to Save the World With

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Poems to Save the World With
chosen and illustrated by Chris Riddell
Macmillan Children’s Books

I fell head over heels with Chris Riddell’s Poems to Fall in Love With and now comes this third of his anthologies, published at a particularly challenging time for everyone, whoever and wherever they are. I received my copy on the day the announcement came of restrictions changing AGAIN, which has meant having to revise plans to visit relations with 3 young children. I felt I needed to dive straight into the book to look for some poetic solace, and headed first to the Lockdown section where unsurprisingly I found much that spoke to me immediately. First, Brian Bilson’s Serenity Prayer that begins ‘Send me a slow news day, / A quiet, subdued day, in which nothing much happens of note, / save for the passing of time ’.

Actually, every one is a gem, not least Chris’ own Lockdown that made me well up. In contrast, Roger McGough’s The Perfect Place that opens thus: ’The world is a perfect place to be born into. / Unless of course, you don’t like people / or trees, or stars, or baguettes.’ … and concludes ‘About the baguettes, / that was just me being silly.’ that end really made me chuckle.

New to me but already oft read are Nikita Gill’s Kindness that has four incredible illustrations by Chris and Neil Gaiman’s What You Need to be Warm written originally to support the 2019 UN Refugee Agency winter appeal with these final lines, ‘Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place, / to hold out a badly knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to say / we have the right to be here, to make us warm in the coldest / season. // You have the right to be here.’

and also from the Everything is Going to be OK section, Rachel Rooney’s Battle Call that will surely spur readers into action.

Among the classical poems Wordsworth’s Travelling ‘This is the spot: how mildy does the sun / Shine in between the fading leaves! The air / In the habitual silence of this wood. / Is more than silent:’ illuminated my woodland walk with my partner the previous day. More than silent it surely was, as our peace was shattered by a very young boy (a modern day Max) out with, I think his dad and , both of whom were howling like wolves for several minutes – stress release I suspect – but very amusing to us in our previously silent wood.

In the same wood on that same walk there’s what I call a troll bridge (made of logs) so I loved finding A.F. Harrold’s wonderful Troll Song made even more so by Chris’ drawings of the troll narrator whose concluding thoughts include, ‘I read a lot of books. They contain other worlds. / For a time I can imagine I’m not living under a bridge.’ Books have certainly been key in keeping this reviewer sane during the challenges of the pandemic.

From the section The Elephant in the Room, is John Donne’s No Man Is an Island that seems even more ironic with this weekend’s announcement of the likelihood of a catastrophic BREXIT no-deal.

In one or more ways, every poem herein helps illuminate the huge challenges we all face, individually and collectively, if we are to make our world a better place for everyone; and what better way to conclude than with Nikita Gill’s uplifting, ‘This is me checking in / sending you the moon as a poem, praying and wishing for us all / a speedy recovery. // And if nothing else, / There will always be poetry/ We will always have poetry.’ from Love in the Time of Coronavirus.

Superbly presented, exquisitely, often intricately, illustrated and enormously uplifting, this is a must for sharing, for giving and for keeping.

The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice

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The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice
A.F. Harrold, illustrated by Mini Grey
Bloomsbury Children’s Books

I was already chortling before I’d even finished reading the poet’s note to readers, let alone any of his advice in poetic form.

This book of awesome delight is the combined effort of two terrific talents, illustrator Mini Grey and A.F. Harrold, the writer and it’s patently obvious that they both relished working on its creation. Indeed, I’ve never seen the poet in better form than here.

The result is a collection of unmissable artistry – verbal and visual – advising on all manner of topics both ordinary and extraordinary from breakfast – both its perils and its lack of boredom inducing properties, to Blackbirds and Bananas, Bins even! As well as ‘… Wobble, wobble, wobble, / gobble, gobble, gulp. … ‘ For, Jelly Is Never Wrong’ (not even the cabbage flavoured variety or the marmite kind) I should hasten to say there’s an entire section of ‘Advice mainly relating to food …”.

When next I see her I’m going to share Useful with 7 year old Emmanuelle after her rather pathetic sausage-eating efforts when last she stayed with us. Having persuaded her dad she “really, really wanted” the sausage dish on offer at the restaurant, she refused to eat any of its main constituent. (they were organic and maybe that was the issue). Had I done so prior to the event I’m sure she would have tried this suggestion: ‘You can balance them on your lip / and pretend to have a moustache / in order to amuse your companions. ‘ I don’t’ think she’s ever been lost at sea, thus needing to ‘attract aeroplanes’ or sharks. But you never know …

Even this zany poet doesn’t advise eating that Bin he writes of; that’s to be found among the 4th and final section containing miscellaneous bits and bobs such as Crosses and Knot Knots – see how cleverly Mini has placed her knotty collection around those. Just one example of her wonderful integrating manipulation (often complete with her own witty asides).

I’ve just read Inside the Anthill to my partner as he’s given to lying flat out in fields to investigate these bumps and lumps, though even his ‘scientific zeal’ hasn’t led him to quite such lengths as trying a cake crumb imitation – at six foot I doubt he’d fool even a single ant.

Not all the poems are totally absurd though: there is a fair sprinkling of the quiet poignant and thoughtful too.

Take the unforgettable, Earthsong: that ends with ‘Some of it is poisoned/ and some of it is dying. / Some of it is silent / and some of it is crying. // Some of it is going / and some of it is gone. / Some of it… ‘

No matter where you open this corker of a book, there’ll be something to love and I can’t resist concluding with the revelatory and entirely apt final verse from Inside: ‘Where am I? / I’m inside, / I’m between the covers. / I’m in so deep. / I’m through the paper door. / I’m breathing the air of other worlds. / I’m exploring. / I’m reading // and I can’t hear you any more.’
Now that is what it’s all about …
Get this – it’s a must for home collections, classrooms, libraries – and I’m sure you’ll never look at anything in quite the same way again.

Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble

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Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble
chosen by Paul Cookson, illustrated by Eilidh Muldoon
Bloomsbury Education

Poet, Paul Cookson has brewed up an anthological crucible that’s brimming over with magical poems, over seventy in all. He’s spread his web wide gathering a rich and varied mix of ingredients that includes classics such as Shakespeare’s Over Hill, Over Dale; from a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Tennyson’s The Kraken and Lewis Carroll’s Dreamland, as well as a host of contemporary poets, established and rising.

I really enjoyed every single one and it’s impossible to select favourites, as it depends on mood as much as anything; but on the day I received my review copy I’d spent at least two hours screaming at my new Macbook which had supposedly had everything migrated from the previous one, but there were lots of things unexpectedly going wrong.

I was greatly amused to find the book opened itself at Stan Cullimore’s Song of the Witches (when their Internet Wasn’t Working) with its opening lines ‘Double, double, click that bubble / We have got computer trouble’. Shame I couldn’t fix it with the poet’s final line ‘Just had to switch it off and on again’ that works so often with computer woes. I suspect Paul himself was using a bit of his ‘Telepathically Magical’ power to cause me to start on that particular page, and no, my answer was not … 3 and I’m still struggling – three days later. A-hah! That’s it!

I know many youngsters who will take great delight in James Carter’s How To Turn Your Teacher Purple! – ‘Heebie Geebie, Hurple Burple / Time To Turn My Teacher … PURPLE!’
I just hope none of them test it out on me though. I definitely wouldn’t countenance being fed with ‘beetroot every hour’ – can’t stand the stuff.

I will certainly avoid doing what the filling of Graham Denton’s four liner did too …

And I’m going to share Matt Goodfellow’s An Example of my Amazing Ability to Make People (Namely my Older Sister) Spontaneously Combust Without Even Touching Them with 5 year old Samuel. It goes like this:
‘I pour away her perfume / scribble in her books / dribble on her mobile phone / and give her dirty looks // pull down all her posters / trample on her clothes / then leg it to my bedroom / and hey presto // she explodes.’
I suspect however that he’s too good natured to try it, but you never know.

Rather than waxing lyrical about the rest of the elements of this marvellous mix, let me just say that Paul serves up a terrific repast here and it’s one to relish whatever the season. Spellbinding it certainly is and I totally love the addition of Eilidh Muldoon’s visual garnishing.

A Poem for Every Autumn Day

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A Poem for Every Autumn Day
ed. Allie Esiri
Macmillan Children’s Books

Allie Esiri has selected 61 autumnal poems for this terrific poetry collection to take readers through from 1st September to 30th November.

For this poetry-loving reviewer much of it was a trip down memory lane, some of which, including Christina Rossetti’s Who Has Seen the Wind?, William Blake’s The Tiger, Someone Came Knocking (Walter de la Mare) and Leigh Hunt’s Abou Ben Adhem took me right back to my primary school days when I learned them by heart.

I’m back in my secondary classroom with my English teacher reading us Edward Thomas’ Digging, Hardy’s Drummer Hodge, Betjeman’s Diary of a Church Mouse and Robert Frost’s The Runaway with that beautiful soft Welsh lilt to her voice.

Then I’m up on the stage in my final year at the same school performing those lines from Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha.

Some of my favourite poems are included: there’s Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 ; and Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken; I can think of no better way to start October than with that.

It’s great to discover new things too.
Surprisingly I’d not comes across John Agard’s terrific poem about bullying, The Hurt Boy and the Birds, beginning ‘The hurt boy talked to the birds / and fed them the crumbs of his heart’ , the final lines of which are, ‘But the hurt boy talked to the birds /and their feathers gave him welcome – // Their wings taught him new ways to become.’

Bang up to date is Michaela Morgan’s Malala: the opening verses  are: ‘A girl with a book. A girl with a book. / That’s what has scared them – / A girl with a book. // They get on to the bus. / They call out my name. They aim. And they fire. / A shot to the brain.’

I was greatly moved by all the war poems chosen for November, and by James Berry’s Benediction, also new to me, that goes like this:
‘Thanks to the ear / that someone may hear // Thanks for seeing / that someone may see // Thanks for feeling / that someone may feel // Thanks for touch / that someone may be touched // Thanks to flowering of white moon / and spreading shawl of black night / holding villages and cities together’

Reminding us of the way smell and taste can bring back long forgotten memories, Crab Apples (Imtiaz Dharker) is another exciting discovery for me: ‘My mother picked crab apples / off the Glasgow apple trees / and pounded them with chillies / to change / her homesickness / into green chutney.’

Much as I really don’t want the summer to end, this treat of a book will assuredly help me feel my way through the shortening daylight hours as I read A Poem for Every Autumn Day.

Butterfly Brain

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Butterfly Brain
Laura Dockrill and Gwen Millward
Piccadilly Press

Gwen Millward’s cover for this book is absolutely delightful; don’t be beguiled by this however. What’s inside is a story about a boy dealing with his grief. There’s even a warning on the first page informing readers that what follows is ‘rather strange and gory.’

Time and time again, Gus gets into trouble; he breaks the rules at school, is rude to his teachers, angry towards others and is always leaning back on his chair, taking not one scrap of notice of warnings about injury from those in school or at home whose anger he’s aroused.

Then one day, the inevitable happens …

CRACK! and that crack becomes a large gap through which Gus’s brains with his dreams, understandings, feelings and memories are exposed for all to see.

A butterfly appears – his very own brain butterfly – a guardian guiding light, it says, but that too flies away. There’s only one thing to do.

Out of the window and up into the night sky goes the pyjama clad boy in pursuit.

During their journey Gus learns how important memories are, be they good or bad, including those buried deep within. He revisits long gone, alarming dreams, learning of one that should not be left behind, and discovers the vital importance of the imagination.

Is he ready finally to own the secret and the painful fear of loss?

Enormously moving, forthright, and written in rhyme, this is a truly heart-rendingly incredible book that can speak to everyone, child and adult, through its words (Laura’s) and its powerful pictures (Gwen’s) rendered in mood-invoking hues.

A definite keeper this.

Honey for You, Honey for Me

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Honey for You, Honey for Me
collected by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Chris Riddell
Walker Books

I danced around the kitchen and leapt in glee on opening the parcel containing this book from the team that gave us the anthology A Great Big Cuddle.

It’s an absolutely stonking first book of forty nursery rhymes and one of the very best gifts you could give a baby or toddler.

Michael has always been fascinated with nursery rhymes calling them ‘surprising little dramas, full of mysteries and unanswered questions.’ Like this reviewer he’s been an avid collector of books of nursery rhymes and in this new one of his, Michael has put not only popular favourites and playground chants, but also some rhymes that have lain forgotten perhaps for a generation or two.

From cavorting elephants en route from Wibbleton to Wobbleton, wibbly wobbly jelly and frizzle frazzle sausages,

as well as dancing ones summoned into life by a whistling boy, a mop-consuming dog and a ton weight of a giant who’s all a-tremble at the mere sight of a mouse – we know we’ve entered that magical land of topsy turvy where playful language is loved for the sheer delight it offers both to those who hear it and to those who utter it.

Chris Riddell’s illustrations are outstanding, making the characters utterly memorable in a new way, be they of those you might already have met such as the all in black clad Miss Mary Mack and Little Poll Parrot or some delightful revelations that for me were the hiccup remedy …

the hungry frog and for the sheer joy of sharing something delectably new and bouncy to boot, ‘Dibbity, dibbity, dibbity, doe, / Give me a pancake and I’ll go. // Dibbity, dibbity, dibbity, ditter, / Please to give me a bit of fritter.’

For utter adorableness, Chris’s character illustration that completely stole my heart was The man in the moon.

Guaranteed to become a favourite in any household with young children, in nursery and early years settings and with anybody who wants to promote a love of language and art for their own sake (surely, that’s pretty much all of us), this is joyful magic from cover to cover.

The Jackie Morris Book of Classic Nursery Rhymes

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The Jackie Morris Book of Classic Nursery Rhymes
illustrated by Jackie Morris
Otter-Barry Books

This is a wonderful new edition of Jackie Morris’ selection of forty nursery rhymes. In her introduction Jackie talks of their crucial importance and vitality in our modern digital world.

Of those included here, some will likely be familiar: there’s Ride a Cock-Horse, Hickory, Dickory Dock, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and Baa, Baa, Black Sheep and Sing a Song of Sixpence, for example;

whereas others – The Hart and the Hare, To the Bat and All the Pretty Little Horses, for example might be new discoveries.

The entire book has a dream-like, timeless quality to it thanks to the exquisite watercolour paintings that grace every spread. It’s virtually impossible to choose a favourite but on this day of writing and sweltering heat, I was drawn to the absolute tranquillity of Baby’s Bed’s a Silver Moon.

There’s humour, the beauty of the natural world, surprises and more; in fact pretty much everything you could wish for in a book that’s an absolute treasure, not just for the very youngest, but for anyone who loves art and language.

Sadly many young children nowadays don’t have that bedrock of nursery rhymes that we nursery and reception class teachers tended to take for granted when little ones began school decades back; but giving a new parent a copy of this stunningly beautiful book might just start a child off on a journey of becoming a lover of words, stories and reading.

The B on your Thumb

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The B on your Thumb
Colette Hillier and Tor Freeman
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books

This is a book of 60 poems, each of which aims to help youngsters learn a particular sound, spelling or rule, and each with a Tor Freeman illustration to make readers giggle.

The author passionately believes that ‘even very young children are receptive to the joys of wordplay’. She’s likely read Kornei Chukovsky’s From Two to Five (required reading when I was  studying the role of language in education under Margaret Meek/Spencer at London University Institute of Education). Here Colette’s clever use of wordplay and rhythm will help develop sound/symbol awareness as well as promote thinking skills, and  demonstrates that there’s pleasure aplenty to be derived from the foibles of the English language and its spelling rules.

Having read the author’s look at language right through, this reviewer, an ardent believer and promoter of the crucial importance of context and meaning as key factors in early reading, wonders how young children manage to learn to read the way it is currently taught in most UK schools. However, Colette’s book is full of loopy delights and she does provide meaning of a playful kind in her poems (many of which are nonsense verse) and I love it, especially as a means to help with spelling.

Deliciously daft from cover to cover (apart from the introduction for grown-ups) this volume is divided into four parts entitled First Sounds …

This ‘Enough of Uff’ is a tricky one: ‘Uff, uff. / Do your stuff. / You’re there in every / huff and puff. / But where are you/ when things get tough? / Perhaps you felt you’d / had enough!’

Then come Silent Letters and Secrets that includes these …

Spellings, and Words that Sound the Same.

Here’s an example from Spellings; it’s called The E on Your Shoe: ‘There is an E / on the tip of your shoe. / Just sitting there / with nothing to do. // Now take off your shoe / and what do you know? Another E / on the end of your toe!’

The book concludes with seven lively ideas for ‘Getting the most out of the rhyme’

A definite thumbs up to this one: get it if you’re a primary teacher, a family with young children or somebody who wants to promote the joy of language for its own sake.

Belonging Street / Dear Ugly Sisters and other poems

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It’s always exciting to receive new poetry books and these two from Otter-Barry Books are smashers.

Belonging Street
Mandy Coe

In this collection Mandy Coe has written about urban life, wild life and family life, sometimes all of them in the same poem. There’s definitely something for every taste and every mood from story poems, puzzling ones, riddles and those that really touch the emotions.

What Mandy does so well is to help readers to see the beauty and the magic of the everyday world whether she’s writing about Helping Hands:
Grandad’s hands are brown / and rough with oil. / Grandma has a green thumb / potatoes pushing up the soil. // My aunt’s hands are pale, / inked with many colours. / My uncle’s hands are strong. / dusted with sugar and flour. // My stepdad’s hand uncurls / to reveal a coin’s bright shine. / My mother’s strong hands / sew each stitch in time. // And when any of us fall, / these hands will help us stand, / these mending, baking, making, / lending, helping hands.

Or talking of butterflies as in She Belongs to the World:
Drifting through Albania / from mountain tops to forest floor, / she is flutur. …
In Norway, / among black pines, a brilliant jewel, / she is sommerfugl’ … ‘Tumbling from the sky, / summer has arrived. / She is Butterfly.’.

And how magical-sounding are these lines from Animals Name the Constellations:
‘What’s in the stars up above?
asked Tadpole of his father.
It’s Silver Spawn in the Black Pond,
the Lily, Carp and Beaver.
Have they been there long?
Forever my love, forever.‘

Love Mandy Coe’s illustrations for this poem

And I’m definitely going to try The Rhythm of Sleep if I find myself unable to drop off at night. It would also make a marvellous relaxation ending to a yoga class except that one doesn’t actually want the participants to ‘slip into sleep.’ Not until they get home anyhow.

Dear Ugly Sisters and other poems
Laura Mucha, illustrated by Tania Rex

This is Laura Mucha’s debut collection although readers may have come across her poems through workshops, festivals, anthologies and other places where poetry is celebrated including the Caterpillar Poetry Prize that she was awarded in 2019 for the title poem. Now we have an entire book and that is most certainly something to be celebrated.

Her writing is wide-ranging and there are several other fairytale-related offerings such as Rapunzel, Did You Sleep Well? – a superbly playful take on The Princess and the Pea from the viewpoints of the pea, the prince and the princess; and Three Bears VS Goldilocks where Goldilocks puts her case concluding it thus: ‘ The Three Bears need to drop their charges, or they’’ll be / contested. / Their lodgings are so terrible, that THEY should be / arrested.’

Each one fresh and accessible, there are shape poems, haiku, poems constructed for the sheer joy of hearing their words said aloud as in Words That Make Me Smile that starts like this:
‘Tog, toggle, goggle, wiggle / wriggle, giggle, gnu ‘ and Listening To – an onomatopoeic immersion in birdsong.

You might choose to celebrate Ash’s Birchday, or while reading Dear Key Workers pay tribute (along with the child collaborators) to all those who have contributed so much during the coronavirus pandemic ; or perhaps ponder upon the plight of those children who in 2018 were separated from their parents after so it was said, illegally entering the United States that Laura speaks so movingly of in How Long Until I Can See My Mum?

Whether your penchant is for science, space, nature or things literary you’ll find a poem here, many of them quirkily illustrated by Tania Rex.

Although a lover of Shakespeare I found myself spluttering with delight at Compliments of Shakespeare (inspired by the bard’s insults); and celebrating the joys of reading with the penultimate, rhyming Travel By Book, the final verse of which is: ‘I’ve met many people, I’ve made many friends, / and though I’ve felt sad when I came to the end / of the journey I’d made – I can make it again / with the words of a wonderful book.’

And, what we have here IS a wonderful book. (You can even use the QR code on the back cover on your smartphone for a free audiobook narrated by Laura herself – how fab is that?)