A Dinosaur at the Bus Stop: Poems to Have Fun With

One of Kate Wakeling’s strengths is what she can achieve with the simplest vocabulary and, consequently, how her poems might be enjoyed by a wide age range. So, while this new collection might be read by eight to ten-year-olds, it could certainly be read to much younger children. She’s a poet that celebrates imagination and the world’s variousness and quietly asks her readers and listeners to do the same. The first two poems are both about difference, Cloud Stories celebrates the difference of perception and imagination that might be found contemplating the shape of clouds and Mr Long Gets Everything Wrong wonders whether Mr Long ‘might have a lot more fun/than someone who gets everything/right.’ She hunts out the mysterious in the everyday. In Splinter she marvels how something so tiny can be so painful, in Pudding Place she revels in the space for pudding that is always there after even the largest meal. She incites you to join in. Can you keep up with The Fastest Poem in the World or ride on the Ready Steady Steam Train, or perhaps you might like to bob like a robin, or just lie quietly in a forest clearing. Of course, monsters and dinosaurs make an appearance, there are some mini-beast and ocean riddles to solve; and there’s even a (very serious) fart poem. But I like the homely mysteries best: the random treasures with their unique appeal, the stick collection which is best on the street; and, above all, My Home itself, a poem for all us home lovers: ‘My home knows my favourite story. / My home knows the toy I like best. / It knows when I pick at my toenails. / It knows when I put on my vest.’ A gentle, witty, and captivating collection.