Peppermint and Popcorn Days: A book of verse for children by Anna Myra Notley. Illus. by Anna Falconer

Imagine you are a child and have been told to shut your eyes and listen to these words...

Key to a Kingdom
Elven homes and fairy dens
sandy stony sweeps and bends
overhangs and underworlds
rusty reddy streaks and curls a kingdom in one liquid rock here's the key
now try the lock...

Where have your mind-pictures taken you? What magical world is unfolding for you to create in your own words or pictures? What adventure have you booked in your imagination?

This is just one of the poems in this outstanding collection for young readers that invite them to listen, imagine and dream and savour the language as so few words tell so much.

Accompanied by bright, detailed illustrations that enrich the experience for those whose imaginations might not be as mature yet, these poems are ideal for sharing the rhythms, rhymes and magic of our language as it rolls off the tongue and sparks imagery, memories and might-bes. Full of the whimsy and wonder and words that take little ones on the private journeys that the ready-made images of the screen prevent, each offers something special that inspires or intrigues or just makes you LOL- like when Jim finds himself in a jam because his elephant has sat on him!!

But as well as being a delight for young listeners exploring the marvels of language, each poem also offers older readers the opportunity to explore language devices such as alliteration, assonance, metaphors, similes and all those other technical terms that they are expected to know. There are teachers' notes available that detail the focus of each particular poem which will help students enrich their own writing, whether poetry or prose, but for little ones, just the flow of the language will enchant.

Themes: Poetry.

Barbara Braxton