I think that poetry is often a vastly neglected area of the school curriculum. Reading, writing, and enjoying poetry should be a regular part of a pupil’s literary diet, not something squashed into a spare week at the end of a half term. For anyone needing some poetic inspiration, you need to take a look … Continue reading Guest piece: ‘Why I Write Poetry and You Should Too’ from the writer of ‘Bright Bursts of Colour,’ Matt Goodfellow.
Are you looking to update and enliven your school reading scheme with some exciting, engaging books by award-winning authors? This can be especially challenging for Key Stage Two pupils. Bloomsbury have just released a stunning range of book banded stories for readers aged 7-11 which are full of illustrations and feature guided reading notes and … Continue reading Bloomsbury Readers
Well the shortlist for this year’s CLiPPA (CLOE Children’s Poetry Award) has been announced and we can all start making some new additions to our poetry diets. As well as sharing that shortlist with you now, I also have a piece from one of the nominees, A.F. Harrold about just how he whittled down the … Continue reading The CLiPPA 2020 – with a special piece from A.F. Harrold
‘I am brown. I am amazing. I am you.’ Every child deserves to see their faces beaming back at them from the pages of the books they read. With 33.1% of our school children being BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic), it is vital that school book collections reflect this. Lantana Publishing are certainly flying … Continue reading Blog tour: ‘I Am Brown,’ by Ashok Banker, illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat.
It was chatting to Karim and the team from Tiny Owl at the CLiPPA awards which gave me the inspiration for this blog post. There they were, a small award-winning independent publisher with a fantastic and diverse catalogue of titles, yet they still found it very difficult to get their books into the larger retailers. … Continue reading Support Our Small Independent and BAME Publishers – how you can help!
In my experience, poetry can be an area often overlooked in schools. But why? Personally, I didn’t feel that I knew enough about composing poetry to teach it properly. But what about sharing poems, performing poems, dipping into a volume and seeing what grabs you? That’s the beauty of a good poetry book and the … Continue reading The CLiPPA Shortlist (premier poetry picks)
Library Girl and Book Boy 