Adder, Bluebell, Lobster

Description

Adder, Bluebell, Lobster

Wild Poems by Chrissie Gittins, illustrated by Paul Bommer

(Otter-Barry Books)

What a beautiful poetry collection! Chrissie Gittins’ offers forty superb poems about the wonders of wild animals in Adder, Bluebell, Lobster. Thereafter, we journey from adder to allotment, newt, willow to wren. It seems as though we’re stepping across a poetry collection. What’s more, each of the animals is one for which we vote to save. It’s as though through her pinprick particular poetry microscope, each specimen is celebrated, discovered and thereafter absorbed by us. Then again, alongside the variety of animals, is a variety of poetry forms, from shape poems to question and answer, riddles to lyric poems, haiku and rhyming couplets. Chrissie Gittins suggests a strength of inner knowledge in her selection, a resolve borne of the need to rescue each selection from its disappearance from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. It seems, like The Lost Words, these poems are celebrations and calls for our attention. However, unlike that great title, this is a discreet and precious poetry collection that merits a place in our bedtime reading routines. Thereafter, Adder, Bluebell, Lobster is an ideal book to read alone or together, at home, or within classrooms or assemblies.