Bison Rule OK

Wow! Here’s a second poetry collection from Sarah Ziman to follow the outstanding Why Did My Brain Make Me Say It. Yes, some of the themes are familiar: life at school and at home, the strange behaviour of friends, siblings and teachers. But here they are treated with such energy, irresistible rhyme and bounce, empathy, perceptive close observation, humour and occasional pathos that everything comes up shiny and new, with surprises at each page turn. Sarah has a gift for coming at things slightly sideways. I wonder, is she the inventor of the rhyming list? See   Reasons my Big Sister Got Annoyed This Week  ‘Not allowed to stay out later – In DIRE need of extra data…’ or School Summer Fair Checklist  ‘Buy back all the cakes we made (tick) Drink six cans of lemonade (tick).’ And then there’s the title poem of the collection, in which a Bison moans about all the more popular creatures and wants his place in the celebrity show ‘Let’s have some bison merchandise/like bison shirts and hats/ Buy some bison duvet covers – bison towels and bison mats.’ In Chipmunks! Chipmunks! Chipmunks! they’ve somehow got onto the school dinner menu ‘Chunky deep-fried chipmunks. Chipmunks cooked three ways. Salty Belgian chipmunks, served up with mayonnaise.’ There’s quite a bit to make you laugh out loud, but equally moments that stop you in your tracks. Things I learned from Nana Jean is a list of the often-quirky wisdom we may all have learned from our nans: ‘There’s really no need to brush ALL of your teeth. (Only the ones that you’d quite like to keep.)’ With the last lessons: ‘How to Play Rummy and Patience and Whist.’ And, finally, ‘Just how someone who’s gone can be missed.’ And Nan turns up again as one of the five haiku-like Small Sadnesses: ‘Nan’s house. The new owners have scaffolding up. Where the old cherry tree was, two cars.’ A lament for lost love and lost time. This is a brilliantly versatile collection. Brilliant for the quiet single reader and brilliant to be read aloud to a class.