Clap Your Hands - Finger Rhymes by Sarah Hayes and Toni Goffe

Poetry is a wonderful way to introduce young children to the idea of rhyme and rhythm. Poems can also incorporate counting and alphabet themes that help children to learn numbers and letters. Read aloud, children can be encouraged to join in as soon as they become familiar with the words. That's something they are likely to do surprisingly quickly.

If you are looking for a collection of short rhymes, Clap Your Hands – Finger Rhymes by Sarah Hayes and Toni Goffe is an anthology of both modern and traditional rhymes, some to be read aloud and some that can be sung. Along with each rhyme comes a series of colorful illustrations that demonstrate actions using the fingers that children can do whilst the rhymes are read or sung. Some involve counting, forwards or backwards, whereas others require using fingers and thumbs to make a circle or a triangle, for example, or to imitate 'incey wincey spider' climbing up the water spout. Here's an example of the kind of rhyme you will find in this book:

'Five fat peas in a pea-pod pressed.

One grew, two grew, so did all the rest.

They grew and grew and did not stop,

Until one day the pod went POP!'

We meet monkey-devouring alligators and witches snapping up pumpkins to make a pie, but even though the pumpkins are personified as little boys and girls sitting on a wall, I never find that children feel threatened by these scary characters that turn up in rhymes and stories. They perhaps enjoy the contrast with the more comforting ideas of baking cakes or cuddling rabbits.

As well as counting forwards and backwards, there are one or two rhymes that could be used to introduce addition and subtraction to young children. (I currently teach a boy approaching his fourth birthday who can count backwards from one hundred and tell me that five plus two equals seven, so don't underestimate pre-school children!) As you read 'Ten galloping horses came through the town, Five were white and five were brown', you can ask the child to put up five fingers on one hand then five on the other and count that they make ten altogether. A few pages later, in 'Chook, Chook...', we meet Mrs Hen; she has ten chickens, four of which are yellow, four are brown, and two are speckled red. So we can deduce that four plus four plus two make ten.

Not all the poems have to be such serious hard work, of course. One simply asks if you would like a cookie, a piece of pie, or a candy stick; another tells us about a turtle who lived in a box and swam in a puddle. The children in the illustrations almost always have beaming smiles, and we see blue-spotted white horses, stripy bees and cats, and stern policemen bowing to each other as they meet in a lane. There is plenty for a young child who is being read to to look at here.

If you want ideas for rhymes and songs, especially those involving numbers, this is an excellent book to use. Unfortunately it seems to be a little hard to get hold of now; I borrowed a paperback edition from the library, but there is a hardback edition available on Amazon Marketplace. Definitely recommended to enjoy with toddlers up to five-year-olds.

Clap Your Hands – Finger Rhymes

by Sarah Hayes and Toni Goffe

Lothrop Lee and Shepard

Hardback, 29 pages

ISBN 074451231X

Price from £3.68 on Amazon Marketplace

Mister Magnolia - Quentin Blake

Animals often seem to be the main focus of children's poetry, but Mister Magnolia by Quentin Blake is the story of a poor man who had only one boot:

'He has green parakeets

who pick holes in his suit -

And some very fat owls

who are learning to hoot -

But Mr Magnolia

has only one boot.'

Mister Magnolia may sound like a sorry character, but lacking a boot doesn't seem to stop him having fun. He dances while his two sisters play the flute, takes children for a ride on his scooter, and juggles with fruit at the market stall.

This is a light-hearted piece of narrative poetry that has a happy ending as a little girl presents Mister Magnolia with a parcel that contains another boot. It doesn't match the one he already has, but never mind, it's a boot, and Mister Magnolia is deliriously happy. It might seem like a strange story, but Quentin Blake is of course the genius behind the illustrations to Roald Dahl's books, and he has provided wonderful coloured drawings to his own story here. We are introduced to Mister Magnolia's purple dinosaur, and we see our hero splashing down a water chute and saluting to a parade of mice. There is plenty here to capture the imagination of young children.

There are never more than five lines of text per page, in fact often just one or two. The text is in a clear font that is always on a white background, so there are no problems in deciphering the words. This makes Mister Magnolia a book that could be suitable for young independent readers as well as one for reading aloud. There are one or two challenging words such as 'parakeets' and 'magnificent', but the use of rhyme often helps a reader along, as do illustrations.

The illustrations appear in colour on every page of the book, making it bright and appealing. Although the colours are vivid, they are certainly not lurid as in some contemporary picture books. Blake's use of watercolour gives them a delightful quality.

This is a book that will not take long to read to a child who has a short attention span. The drawings, however, are worth stopping to take a closer look at. In Mister Magnolia's pond, a frog and a newt are dancing together on a lily pad while a toad looks on; a mouse is tickling Mister Magnolia's bare foot with an ear of wheat as a snail creeps away. For any adult looking to make it a more educational experience, there are opportunities for counting or identifying different types of fruit.

Mister Magnolia is definitely worth borrowing from the library before you decide whether you want to buy a copy. As well as the full size book, there is a Mini Treasure version (also published by Red Fox) that measures 5.5 in. x 4 in. At £1.50, it will hardly break the bank. The book is likely to appeal to children aged from three up to perhaps six.

If only we were all so easily pleased as Mister Magnolia, with two odd boots...

Mister Magnolia

by Quentin Blake

Paperback, 32 pages

Red Fox; New Edition 1999

ISBN 0099400421

Price £5.99 (Amazon £4.49)

Dahl's Dirty Beasts

Some children may grow up thinking that poetry is an art form that is stodgy and boring, or has to revolve around lofty ideas. If that is the case, they cannot have been introduced to Roald Dahl's 'Dirty Beasts', a collection of nine verses each featuring a creature that is either particularly frightening, very clever or quite extraordinary in some way. The book is likely to delight anyone who has enjoyed Dahl's 'The BFG', 'George's Marvellous Medicine' or 'The Twits', amongst others.

'The Pig' opens this anthology: a pig with a massive brain, who wonders what the purpose of his life is. He is clever enough to work it out:

'“They want my bacon slice by slice

“To sell at a tremendous price!

“They want my tender juicy chops

“To put in all the butchers' shops!”'

You can probably guess what happens when Farmer Bland comes to feed him the following morning.

No less gruesome is the verse about 'The Crocodile'. Not the best choice for bedtime reading, as this beast smears boys with mustard before crunching them, and devours little girls with butterscotch and caramel:

'It's such a super marvellous treat

When boys are hot and girls are sweet.'

A single page is then accorded to 'The Lion', who doesn't beat about the bush when it comes to telling us his favourite food. We are then introduced to 'The Scorpion' and told to be thankful that we in England will never find one in our bed – or will we? 'There's something moving on my feet'...

'The Ant-Eater' looks quite cuddly in comparison but beware, looks are deceiving. 'The Porcupine' teaches us the all-important lesson of having a good look before we sit down anywhere. A poor little girl fails to do this before settling on a 'comfy-looking little mound' to eat her favourite raspberry-cream chocolates that she has just bought with her pocket-money:

'My backside seemed to catch on fire!

A hundred bits of red-hot bits of wire

A hundred prickles sticking in

And puncturing my precious skin!'

A very costly visit to the dentist ensues, as mum seems to think he is the best person to remove the prickles. He seems to take great delight in doing so, and well he might with fifty guineas to come as payment.

We might expect 'The Cow' to be a less threatening beast, although Miss Milky Daisy is no ordinary cow but one that grows a pair of gold and silver wings. The crowds come to see her dive, swoop and loop the loop, and all but one of the onlookers clap, cheer and behave well. Can you guess what punishment is inflicted on the 'horrid man' who insults Daisy? Now we know why this anthology is entitled 'Dirty Beasts'.

The final verse in the collection, 'The Tummy Beast', describes a young boy who is convinced that there is someone in his tummy:

' “It's true!” I cried. “I swear it, mummy!

There is a person in my tummy!

He talks to me at night in bed,

He's always asking to be fed.” '

The poor boy's mother doesn't believe a word of it. She thinks it's just a 'silly asinine excuse' to be greedy and eat sugar buns and biscuits all day long. To look at this specimen of childhood obesity, you might tend to agree with her. I'm afraid, however, that 'darling mother' nearly dies when she actually hears the beast in the tummy snort, grumble and then actually demand nuts, chocolates and sweets. It's all too much for her.

Quentin Blake's imaginative caricatures add even more to the feeling of fun in this book. He really goes to town on the creatures in 'Dirty Beasts', where The Ant-eater devours an eighty-three-year-old woman (mistaking 'aunt' for 'ant'), flinging her in the air by her pony-tail. In 'the Toad and the Snail' we see grinning Frenchmen brandishing knives as they chase a giant toad; this turns out to be a magic toad who turns first into a giant snail and then into the 'gorgeous, glamorous, absurd, enchanting Roly-poly bird', a beautiful shade of blue with a multi-coloured, stripy tail, on whose back a little boy rides.

The humour here will not, of course, be to everyone's taste, and some of the ideas will be frightening for very young children. Slightly older independent readers, however, who appreciate this kind of humour will have plenty of fun going through this collection and letting their imagination run wild. The illustrations will provide a delightful source of encouragement. The only drawback is that the poems are not split into stanzas, and in a few cases there are as many as thirty-six continuous lines to a page. This could prove a little confusing or off-putting to a young reader who is still gaining confidence.

To anyone who has enjoyed Roald Dahl's novels but has not yet experienced his poetry, I would definitely recommend this collection of verse. I would also suggest it for children who perhaps need encouragement to read poetry and who will not be frightened by the ideas here but will see the funny side to them. There is plenty of rhythm and rhyme, and plenty of entertainment to be had.

Dirty Beasts

by Roald Dahl

with illustrations by Quentin Blake

Picture Puffins 2001

Paperback, 32 pages

ISBN 0140568239

Price £5.99 (Amazon £4.49)