Good Reads: Highfield Primary School

Our Good Reads were chosen by young people at the Highfield Primary School, Enfield and are all poetry anthologies. Thanks to the pupils and to the school’s poet-in-residence Cheryl Moskowitz.

Ladder to the Moon

Maya Soetoro-Ng, illustrated by Yuyi Morales, Walker Books, 978-1-4063-3773-0, £5.99

Suhaila is a little girl like me. Her grandma Annie passed away but wanted to see her granddaughter one last time so she made a golden shiny ladder in the sky and climbed down until she reached Suhaila’s house on Earth. Grandma Annie invited Suhaila on an adventure and Suhaila agreed. They climbed up all the way to the sparkly, silver moon and when they looked down they saw terrible things happening. They saw a flood, schools and homes washing away, but the children and mummies stayed safe because of Suhaila and her grandma who shared everything they had and gave them sweet moon dew to drink. From the moon Suhaila could see her shadow on earth and knew she would take power from the moon back with her when she had to go.

I used to wish that the earth could be our moon so we could gaze at all the countries and remember them in our heads, and learn something about all of the people in the world.

What makes the book special for me is how you can tell from the pictures that the people are from different places. I think all families everywhere should read this book together.

Lily Hearn, Yr 2

The Noisy Classroom

Ieva Flamingo illustrated by Vivianna Maria Stansislavska, translated from the Latvian by Žanete Vēvere Pasqualini, Sara Smith and Richard O’Brien, The Emma Press, 978-1-9101-3982-0, £8.50 hbk

This book of poems is very interesting for me, Ieva Flamingo writes about so many subjects. It helps me with my language and to learn new words and information. Some pieces are funny and some are serious and moving. My favourite is ‘The Girl in the Wheelchair’, especially the final lines:

She is almost, almost exactly like me,

though it’s easier for her to play the spellbound princess;

but you mustn’t imagine she’s trapped by a dragon;

or think that her wheelchair’s a frightening fortress…

Ieva Flamingo is sensitive about people and relationships and also cares about the natural world. Her poetry helps us to see that computers and mobile phones aren’t the most important things in life, you need nature and friendship too.

I can’t speak Latvian so I am happy these poems have been translated otherwise I wouldn’t have known about them. My first languages are Greek and Albanian so I know how important it is to be able to translate good writing into a language people can understand.

I like writing my own poems and I write about people, and the world and what interests me just like Ieva Flamingo does. At the back of this book are suggestions for creating your own poems. I think I will try some.

Kristina Kola, Yr 6

Fortune’s Bones – The Manumission Requiem

Marilyn Nelson, notes and annotations by Pamela Espeland, Front Street Books, 978-1-9324-2512-3, £11.99

We have been talking at school about Black History and learning about Harriet Tubman, who worked to free slaves, so this book is very interesting for me. It’s beautifully illustrated with photos and paintings from history.

Fortune’s Bones is more than a poetry book, it’s a requiem (which means ‘song for the dead’) reminding us how black people in America were often born into slavery and treated wrong for their whole lives, then forgotten about when they died. The poet Marilyn Nelson saw this skeleton in a museum and wanted to find out about the man whose bones it was. He was a slave named Fortune, owned by a white doctor who kept the bones after Fortune died.

My favourite lines are from the poem ‘Not My Bones’:

You can own someone’s body

but the soul runs free.

It roams the night sky’s

mute geometry.

The poem tells us that who we are inside is more important than the body we live in.

The last verse in this poem begins,

Well, I woke up this morning just so glad to be free…

This book really inspired me and will make you appreciate your own freedom and care about those not so fortunate.

Saphira Ekici Yr 6

The Young Inferno

John Agard, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, Frances Lincoln Books, 978-1-8478-0109-8

This book is one long poem, divided into 12 Cantos (like chapters). Based on Dante’s Inferno, the story tells what happens to people after they die if they have done bad stuff but it is really a book about life and how we can learn from history.

A boy, let’s call him The Boy Who Went to Hell, is led around by his teacher guide, the Greek storyteller, Aesop, who wrote all those fables! The poems contain bits of stories and characters I recognised (Shakespeare, Hitler, Henry the Eighth…) and things we already know about history. The fact that it’s written as a poem, and rhymes, makes you want to read it more and the Japanese pictures kept my attention. I would recommend it for every child, even older people.

Also, reading this means you can impress adults that you know about The Divine Comedy the original poem by Dante that John Agard was inspired by. It’s like a history lesson and would be good for teachers too. I read the book at school and liked it so much I asked my mum to buy me a copy for home.

Dilan Ahmed, Yr 6