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children childrens illustration pets Poetry

Perfect Christmas Present for Cat Lovers

My Walk to School Friends by Ed Boxall

When my son was small, I used to walk him to school. The journey always took longer than it should have. Partly, this was because he loved collecting every shiny scrap of metal, thingamajig and whatchamacallit he spotted on the ground. Mostly, though, it was because of the cats.

We had to say hello to every one of them. They all knew him. Some dozed on walls or bins; others stared from windows or padded gracefully towards us, tails swishing behind them. And, of course, there were occasionally cats we knew we really shouldn’t go near unless we wanted a scratch.

Bringing up children can often be hard. But even on the hardest days, though, my children showed me something I would have otherwise missed- like the cats you meet in my book, who I met because my son introduced me to them on our daily walks.

I have brought imagination and artistic licence to that lovely daily ritual. Believe it or not, we never met a cat who claimed to have been a pirate and fought a shark, or one who believed she was the Queen. Still, I think every cat has a touch of royalty. Like Belinda in my book, they often seem to gaze down on us lowly humans from above. Beowolf was completely real though- nothing made up about him:

Beowolf, Peel Street, Number 38,

Like a big grey cloud with a squirrel’s tail

When I stroke his tummy, he thunderously purrs,

But he’s a tiny skinny cat under all that fur.

My Walk to School Friends is, of course, a book about cats: a charming rhyming story filled with funny illustrations and details to revisit again and again. It is also about a child who notices the wonder in the world around him and is open to making friends with it, which I think is a good way to approach life!

My Walk to School Friends can be purchased from my website if you’d like a special signed and dedicated copy:

Children who love cats will love it…by I think all those grown ups who love cats will enjoy it too.

Find it in my bookshop!

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pets Poetry Uncategorized

My Walk To School Friends

My Walk To School Friends is a poem from my book ‘Me and My Alien Friend’. 

Here’s a little performance I made of it in my studio at home:

…and here’s the spread of the poem in the book:

My Walk To School Friends

The poem has been going down really well on my visits to schools.

The chorus lends itself to call-and-response really well- we do this with increasingly silly voices as the poem proceeds! I also encourage the children to do lots of sounds and actions through the poem. It works really nicely for all ages at primary school.

I find it’s a good poem to use as a starting point for talking about how important personal and particular experience is as inspiration for writing: the whole poem is based on an experience my son and I had on the way to school every day.

The poem is the starting point for lots of activities in class. There’s lots of possibilities for writing back stories for the cats in the poem and developing writing based on the seemingly ordinary experiences children have every day.Once we transformed a class into the streets where the cats live with cardboard boxes, masking tape and drawing materials.  Children added the things they notice on the way to school. This is a nice playful creative 3D way to begin writing- a kind of big 3D whole class brainstorm!

It can also be a starting point for specifically writing about animal encounters. I often like to get children to write a letter to an imaginary friend about an animal encounter- this is a nice way of generating ideas, images and effective language before starting on a finished poem. I always use other poems with  ‘My Walk To School Friends’ as a starting point for animal encounter poems. In the poem  we meet the cats very briefly and it rhymes throughout. In contrast, I like to include a poem that doesn’t have a solid rhyme pattern and describes a relationship with one animal in more detail:

Dixie

Me and My Alien Friend can be purchased below for £7.99, or is available from Amazon or to order from your local bookshop!BUY BOOK BUTTON