The Billy That Died With Its Boots On by Stephen Whiteside, ill. Lauren Merrick, ISBN 9781922077431, Walker Books Australia
REVIEWED BY JOSEPH, 10, WA
Joseph is reviewing his own copy of this book.
This is a book where the poems are all by an Australian poet, written in Australian bush style. But not everything is about Australia — like the poem called ‘The Poles’ (as in the north and south) and there’s a dinosaur section.
Some of the poems remind me of me (especially the poem about cleaning your room). As I do with poem books, I picked out the extra interesting looking ones first and then later I went back and read the others. Some of the ones that looked interesting at first were ‘The Sash’, ‘The Saucing of the Pies’ and ‘The Icecream that Hurt’. They were all very good poems.
My favourite poems in this collection are: ‘The Poles’ and ‘The Comforts of Home’. I like the ideas behind them and the rhythms, and they’re good to say out loud as well as to read to yourself in your head.
There aren’t many pictures in this book. The illustrations are black and white and they stand out well.
Children aged 6 and above will love this book — even adults, because the style of the poems suits children and adults. My number one tip is to read the poems out loud or get someone to read them out loud to you. I’d like to read more poems by Stephen Whiteside. I like these so much I might choose one of these poems for my next school Oracy exam.
This book is best read while eating pies with sauce.
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Read our earlier interview with the poet, Stephen Whiteside.
Joseph is one of our regular book reviewers. His most recent review (if you don’t count this one) was of The 52-Storey Treehouse. If YOU would like to send us a book review, check out our submission guidelines. Happy reading!
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