Family life - the good, the bad and the sleepless

There was not a lot of sleeping last night. Four of the five of us are sick, in varying degrees of miserableness. Family life is just like that sometimes.

Some days are good,
Some days are bad,
Some days are neither,
Only so-so.
Some days we’re sad.
Some days we’re glad,
Ups,
downs,
It’s like a family yo-yo.

Catherine and Laurence Anholt’s “Big Book of Families” has this poem and many others, all about families. The poems in this collection run the full gamut of family life – holidays, moods, sibling quarrels, grandparents, fussy eaters and too much noise. I chose this book because I could relate to all those themes!

Little poems like these ones are a great introduction to poetry. They’re fun to say aloud, they’re humorous and they portray real family life. The illustrations are also very real and depict a range of family circumstances, family sizes and family lifestyles.