It’s the Sound of the Thing is an awesome book which features a wide range of poems about everyday life – from school, the seasons, bees, love, messy brothers, TikTok, cats and even peanut butter!

Through the book we learn that there are so many different types of poems or ‘poetic forms’. These include haiku, sonnets, rhyming couplets, limericks, free verse, tongue-twisters and more. I haven’t read much poetry, but I found the poems in this book really engaging and relatable. I especially enjoyed the tongue twisters, as they were really fun to read out loud and the limericks, which were incredibly funny.

I love how in just a few words or sentences a whole story comes to life. I think this is a great book for anyone who wants to get into reading poetry or just wants a great book to read.

Reviewed by Kate, Year 5
Age Guide 9+

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian poet and writer of Afro-Caribbean descent. She is an Indie award-winning author of Carrying the World (2016), Foreign Soil (2017) and The Hate Race (2018). She is the author of five books for children, including the CBCA and Boston Globe/Horn Prize award-winning picture book The Patchwork Bike (2016, illustrated by Van T Rudd), and the critically acclaimed Wide Big World (2018, illustrated by Isobel Knowles). Maxine is the author-illustrator of two picture books, Fashionista (2019) and When We Say Black Lives Matter (2020). She also illustrated the picture book 11 Words for Love (2022), written by Randa Abdel-Fattah. We Know A Place is the third picture book she has both written and illustrated.