Two Barks

When Julie O'Callaghan reads her poems to teenagers, the teachers stand at the classroom door to eavesdrop. The secret of her success as an acclaimed children's writer is that - far from writing down to young readers - her poems identify totally with them. Anyone who has longed for hair with zing, hoped to persuade their parents to part with the price of a new dress or waited to the point of despair for someone to arrive will ?nd an ally in Julie O'Callaghan's Two Barks. Whether writing a narrative poem about the pleasures and terrors of being home alone or a short lyric about a nasty asteroid, Julie O'Callaghan's poems are devastatingly accurate and hugely entertaining. As Matthew Sweeney wrote of her previous collection for children, Taking My Pen for a Walk (Orchard Books, 1988): 'This is a book which will do missionary work for poetry, a book to leave out for babysitters and know they'll read it.' Equally, Two Barks is a book which babysitters will leave out for parents, knowing they will ?nd it as enlightening as it is irresistible.

Illustrated by Martin Fish