Bake a weird cake, join the School for Ghouls, and mind you don’t step on the wardrobe monkeys! Anything is possible in the world of Cloud Soup, an endlessly delightful and breathlessly imaginative collection of poems by Kate Wakeling.
Author & Illustrators
This is a magnificently vibrant and bouncy book of poems for early years and KS1, filled with musicality, movement and magical wonder. The poems float beautifully on the pages, one spread for each poem, majestically illustrated by Schwarz.
From first poems on waking up to the morning moon to other marvels of nature such as ways of looking at a leaf, being a bubble and raindrops, Wakeling’s poems are accessible but also filled with sounds to savour in the mouth. In particular, Wakeling focuses on the reader’s relationship with the world – heightened awareness of the body in a poem about a bellybutton, feeling what it’s like to move slowly in Song of the Slow or fast in The Magnificent Race of the Animals.
There is humour galore – Mr Tring, for example, is a delightful poem about memory and personality. Some rhymes, all with pleasing rhythm, this is a poet at the height of her talent, delighting children with a first and certainly not last dip into poetry. For those just learning words in all their wonderful shapes and variety, this is a brilliant colourful and lively first exploration of the genre. I couldn’t recommend it more. I will be reading this aloud with all of EYFS and KS1!
This is a collection of ‘poems to have fun with’ – and really widens that scope to ‘words to have fun with’, ‘ideas to have fun with’ and ‘read-alouds to have fun with’ too!
Previously shortlisted for the CLiPPA award, A Dinosaur at the Bus Stop celebrates the absurdity and the unexpected. These poems are perfectly pitched to hit the humour level of younger primary pupils, while Eilidh Muldoon’s playful illustrations bring the nonsense gloriously to life.
It’s an excellent collection and a brilliant choice for high-energy read-aloud sessions that will bring all the joy of poetry to the classroom.
Bake a weird cake, join the School for Ghouls, and mind you don’t step on the wardrobe monkeys! Anything is possible in the world of Cloud Soup, an endlessly delightful and breathlessly imaginative collection of poems by Kate Wakeling.
This collection of witty and intriguing poems that stir the imagination was the winner of the 2017 CLiPPA poetry award. The poems are lively, thought-provoking and are likely to be enjoyed for their humour, language play and rich variety of themes that appeal to upper KS2, including magic, space, relationships, family life and human emotion.
review
Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:
Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:
Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?
Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?
Would you recommend the book for use in primary schools?
yes
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Curriculum links (if relevant)
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