Giant Wall, by Cindy Faughnan

  * Cindy Faughnan writes poems for children and adults when she’s not working on her middle-grade/YA novels. Her poems have appeared in Roar Kids Magazine, Dirigible Balloon, High Five, and Visual Verse. She completed an MFA in Writing for Children and Young...

Humpback, by Leigh Manley

Here you come, Major Big Time, smooth-sailing ocean’s ceiling in your lumpy, bumpy skin, swaying hello to watchers: a living, breathing submarine tail-waving so-long like a colossal mermaid on vacation. You re-emerge in thundercrush rush, splashing and spraying your...

Big Things Start Small, by Jodie Houghton

I often forget that big things start small: a poem with one line, a rope with some twine; a castle with a brick, magic with one trick; a chicken with an egg, a circus from one peg; an encore with a clap, migration with one flap; a belch with a bubble, a beard with...

Critically Endangered, by Claire Schlinkert

Let us speak for the Voiceless Treefrog, and not take risks with Gamble’s Flatwing. Let us stay true to the False Shark Ray, and not wrong the North Atlantic Right Whale. Let us look out for the Four-Eyed Turtle. Let us value the Yellow Goldflake, and not slight the...

Double-Shine Morning, by Carol Coven Grannick

Sunrise behind me, moon up ahead: Double-shine morning – silver and red. Together, we turn, walk backwards and then: Double-shine morning! We see it again!   * Carol Coven Grannick is an award-winning children’s author and poet whose novel in verse, REENI’S TURN,...

Measuring in Animals, by Vicky Gatehouse

Mum makes a mark on the chart to see how much I’ve grown. Last time I was about the size of a toddling Emperor penguin (but taller than my brother who’s just a Shetland pony). I have shot up, Mum says. Rrrr! I’m now standing proud as a lion. If I swirl my arms and...