by Laura Mucha and illustrated by Tania Ray
Poetry provides a wonderful opportunity for reading aloud to children and this excellent debut collection has something for everyone. Fresh, original and full of a delightful mixture of the fun and the serious, these will have children aged 6 – 12, both laughing and reflecting. Rich in language and rhythm. the collection enjoys surprising the reader, with many shape and puzzle poems and pokes fun at fairytales, with versions offering a twist. The book’s themes include nature, science, space plus emotions and feelings and it will also be a really useful book for supporting empathy.
Although it was very hard to choose, because they all offer something special to the collection, some of my personal favourites were Bottled Up, The Land of Blue, the concrete poem Lunch with the birds and Dear Ugly Sisters, which sees Cinderella getting her own back! I particularly liked the fact that some of the poems include information about the subject e.g. Flemings Petri Dish has information about Alexander Fleming and what he did. The back cover has a QR code which can be scanned by a smartphone and gives a free audiobook, making the cover price very good value. Laura’s website https://lauramucha.com/ also has videos of her performing some of her poems. She is a brilliant performance poet who works in schools and has had poems included in many anthologies. This first solo collection is one to own and to enjoy sharing with children.