The Flying Machine of Dreams

A poetry collection by Kate Wakeling is always a treat and this one is especially welcome because it comes in picture book format wrapped up in brilliant colour illustrations by Viviane Schwarz. Kate and Viviane are completely in step here. There’s quiet and wistful as a boy contemplates the morning moon from his bed or the poet imagines herself a bubble. There’s the rumbustious rhyming of the magnificent – and crazy – race of the animals, with its insistent and inviting refrain of ‘See them sprint and see them scurry. Come on creatures: hurry, hurry.’ ‘The rhino’s on a bicycle. The sheep is in a jeep. The sloth had put its trainers on-but then it fell asleep.’  Or maybe it’s time to make body shapes: ‘How about a human pencil? Reach up straight and high. Or become an eagle, stretching wings out to the sky.’ And then, quietening back down, the Song of the Slow, accompanied by a magnificent blue snail with a multi-coloured shell. ‘Slow is quiet as clouds. Whisper a shhhhhhh. (Slow’s not often loud).’ These are poems and pictures to invite and delight the youngest, full of the sights, sounds and tastes of a world to be discovered (Six Ways of Looking at a Leaf) and enjoyed (Word Food, Juicy, squashy, fizzy, frothy, crispy, crumbly on your tongue…) and imagined (‘what if that button on your tummy…could actually do some magic stuff?’) but never taken for granted. What are your softest things? A lullaby, a rabbit’s fur, the fuzz of a peach, a kitchen’s purr? I could go on. But it wouldn’t be the same, even if I repeated every one of Kate’s words. You can’t see Viviane’s pictures here. Buy or borrow this lovely book. Satisfaction guaranteed.