Writes Poems, Stories & Faith-Based Content For Kids of All Ages
The noisy black crow cries: "Caw! Caw! Caw!"
As he sits on the roof
Of the house next door.
"Clickety-Clack!" Mrs. Magpie calls back
Her fine feathers gleaming,
Her tail long and black.
"Toodle-de-doo!" is the Woodpigeon's coo,
"Good morning, stop yawning,
And how do you do?"
"Everything's brill!"
Is the Robin's bright trill,
Hopping along on the window-sill,
"I'm a happy, wee chap,
With my cheery red breast,"
But the song of the Blackbird's
The one I love best.
Growing up as a child in South London, where it’s often a few degrees warmer than the rest of the country, often meant that we’d be the hard-done by kids that didn’t get any snow. When the news and weather came on, we could only look on in envy at all the videos of children all around the UK flying down hills on sledges because school was cancelled!
In memory of this, I wrote this rhyming story about a group of Primary School kids in just this situation. : I hope you enjoy reading it. Alternatively, you can listen to me reading it here: https://dirigibleballoon.org/poem/The-Day-It-Didnt-Snow.
We trudged into school feeling terribly glum,
We’d been hoping for snow, but that snow didn’t come.
Instead, it was raining, and grey, grey, grey, grey,
And then it got worse,
When Miss Gibbs said: “Wet play.”
While other kids sledged up and down, having fun,
We sat, with our heads in our hands, having none.
Miss Gibbs gave us paper and glitter and glue,
She told us: ‘Stop moping! Find something to do.”
Then up piped the voice of a new kid, called Trevor:
“I’m making the world’s longest paper-chain ever!”
And we watched him make rings.
Out of strips of bright paper,
He looped them,
And linked them,
And glued them together.
And the whole class joined in,
It was something to do,
And we all added loops
Til that paper-chain
G-R-E-W!
Silver and crimson,
And glittering green,
Our chain was fantastic,
The best EVER seen!
It stretched round the room,
And then out through the door,
But it still wasn’t finished,
We all wanted more!
Then the kids in year Two
Saw our paper-chain fun,
And the kids in Year Three
Told the kids in year One.
And before very long,
The whole school seemed to know,
And everyone helped
Make our paper-chain grow!
And even the teachers,
Miss Gibbs and Miss Baker,
Began cutting strips out of colourful paper.
And our lessons got cancelled,
We were: ‘learning through play,’
We were trying new things,
It was paper-chain day!
And when it was finished,
We all oohed and aahed,
At our fabulous chain,
Made of paper and card.
It was draped down the corridor,
And all through the school,
Once round the classrooms,
And twice round the hall.
Even the staffroom
Was brightly festooned,
“Ooh, it looks lovely!”
Miss Hunniford swooned.
And the newspapers came
With their camera crews,
And suddenly in strolled
A bloke from the news!
And we didn’t get snow,
But we got on TV,
Miss Gibbs and some other kids, Trevor and me,
And our marvelous paper-chain
Shiny and bright,
Got a five-minute feature, on London Tonight!
We’d done it!
We’d made the best paper-chain ever,
Our brilliant school,
And the new kid called Trevor.
I’m currently working my way through a superb course on Picture Book writing by the brilliant Julia Donaldson.
(For a link to all the BBC Maestro Courses, click here: https://www.bbcmaestro.com/)
The course content is not only helpful, but wonderfully inspiring and at the end of every session, there is an exercise to try. The most recent was to read the classic ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll – writer of the Alice in Wonderland books – and use it as a basis for writing your own story or poem.
In case you haven’t read it, ‘Jabberwocky’ is a poem which intersperses plain English with totally nonsensical, made-up words resulting in a totally brilliant bit of balderdash which the reader can still understand!
If you’ve never read it, please do!: https://www.owleyes.org/text/jabberwocky/read/text-poem
For the sake of time, I decided to stick largely to the original text, but try to come up with my own nonsensical words in place of Carroll’s! And here is the result.
T’was flinkle, and the smurky glurg,
Did chire and chunder in the floom,
All boggy were the swampaleeze,
And the qualm fligs downrume.
‘Beware the Gringlecrunch, my son,
His knees go creak, his knuckles crack.
Beware the Howling Jowl and run
From terrifying Bladdersmack!’
He took his runsome sword in hand,
Longtime the vexious foe he sought,
So rested he by the Plickadee
And stood a while in thought.
And as in flonder thought he stood
The Gringlecrunch with breath most foul,
Came hortling through the greeping wood
Skarooming with a howl!
One two! One two! And through and through,
The runsome blade went Bammleboff!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went marading off!
‘”And hast thou slain the Gringlecrunch?
Come to my arms my lubbish lad,
Oh vumshious night, Skooreeh! Skoorite!
My heart is minsely glad.
T’was flinkle, and the smurky glurg,
Did chire and chunder in the floom,
All boggy were the swampaleeze,
And the qualm fligs downrume.
I found this exercise heaps of fun, but also challenging. Believe it or not, it’s trickier than you might think to to come up with a word that sounds vaguely recognisable, whilst at the same time being utter nonsense – especially whilst sticking to a rhyming scheme.
So in honour of National Poetry Day, (which is tomorrow by the way) why not have a go at writing your own rendition of ‘Jabberwocky?’ I’d love to hear how you get on!
Happy writing!
I used to LOVE making these as a child. Did you?
I draw round a glass
Then cut out the circle
Fold it three times
Til it looks like a cone,
Then comes the tricky bit,
Ever so carefully,
Snippety-snip round the edges I go!
Cutting out ovals
And tiny white triangles,
Tumbling down to the table
Like snow
And now for the magic,
Unfolding the paper,
Quite how it happens I really don't know
SNOWFLAKE!
You can find this poem, and lots more besides here: https://dirigibleballoon.org/poem/Paper-Snowflake
In celebration of National Poetry Day, 220 new poems have been uploaded onto https://www.dirigibleballoon.org – a fantastic bank of poetry for kids!
Such a pleasure to have one of mine included! (https://dirigibleballoon.org/poem/Tiny-Travelers)
It’s all about seeds, and the fascinating ways they get around!
Seeds are tiny
Seeds are small
Seeds are quite remarkable.
Seeds need light and space to grow
Seeds know how to up and go
Off to find wide open spaces
Seeds are really going places!
Tiny travelers
New horizons
The way they move is quite surprising.
Some seeds float
Some seeds glide
Some have hooks to hitch a ride
Some have helicopter wings,
Some seeds POP
And some seeds PING!
Dandelion seeds are cute
Each a mini parachute
Blow upon their fluffy seeds
Watch them float upon the breeze!
Seeds are tiny,
Miniscule!
But I think seeds are really cool.
Angela Jelf, 2024
Angela Jelf 