Inside Out: children's poets discuss their work
by JonArno Lawson
Illustrated by Jonny Hannah
I always knew I was getting old but had managed to convince myself that this wasn't really cramping my style in any way... until I started reading this book! It's a fabulous idea: print a poem, then get the poet herself, or himself to comment on it. So far, so super. The poems are printed on white pages. The illustrations are brilliant. All is sunny and light. THEN: you turn the page to read the commentary and some designer wizard has decreed that this be printed in a kind of pretend-typewriting-on-an-old-typerwriter in white letters on blue paper. I scrunch my eyes up. I work it out in the end, but by heck, it's a effort even to read the witty and succinct remarks of some of our best poets. I did it, of course, and I'm glad I did. I am also quite sure this stylistic matter will not bother most of the intended readers of this lovely book but if you're over 60, watch out!
The poems and comments are both amusing and enlightening. Almost my favourite poem, Five Girls by Carol Ann Duffy, is accompanied by Duffy's supremely pithy remarks (only nine lines to decipher here!) which are so sensible and down-to-earth that they made me chortle : "I wrote this poem to amuse my daughter Ella when she was four or five." There's a little more detail, but that's basically it. Way to go, Carol Ann!
A marvellous book, even with my one major nitpick. If you buy it, you are guaranteed hours of most enjoyable discussion.