They Sent a Cat to Saturn
Valerie Bloom, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max
Otter-Barry Books

‘They sent a cat to Saturn / on a spaceship called Hooray / they put him in his cat spacesuit / and sent him on his way.’ So begins the title poem in this exciting collection that’s bursting with playfulness, wordplays and empathy. You will find in the six sections of the book haikus including a couple of Jamaican ones, poems about pets such as Spotty, which is about a destructive watch dog, another admonishing a dog that drinks the water from the loo

and even one about wanting a dinosaur more than any other creature.

The shortest section Glorious Food has Just Because that made me laugh realising as a youngster I would also have been turned out from the Kids Vegan Society for eating such things as ‘A head of cabbage’ … ‘a bowl of ladies fingers … kidney beans and artichoke hearts.’

Several of the poems in the final section Brawta are of a more serious nature. One such is the extremely moving Refuge which couldn’t be more timely; it’s concluding two verses are these:
‘No babies crying for a scrap of food / To ease the hunger pains, / None gasping for a drop of water / To quench the fire in their brains. // No hungry flames consume the town, No one lives in fear, There’s no war in this country, Can we find refuge here?’
Thought-provoking too are One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Choose.

I love Valerie Bloom’s poetry and strongly recommend you get copies of this accessible treasure of a book with black and white drawings by Ken Wilson-Max that capture the poems’ main moments: it’s ideal for KS2 class sharing and to enjoy at home.