Be The Change: Poems to Help You Save the World

by Liz Brownlee, Roger Stevens, Matt Goodfellow

From National Poetry Day Ambassadors Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Roger Stevens comes an incredible anthology of poetry identifying ways we can Be the Change. These positive and upbeat poems will explore sustainability and the positive efforts being made to protect the planet and are perfect for starting conversations about looking after each other and our environment.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published September 5, 2019

About the author

Hello - I'm a poet and children's poet, in about 60 poetry anthologies, on all sorts of fabulously mad subjects like moondust and mystery and monsters.

I have an MA from Bath Spa University in Writing for Young People - I highly recommend this course to all budding children's writers!

I love animals and writing about them - you can see my poems up at Bristol Zoo.

My book - Animal Magic, Poems on a Disappearing World, contains poems and facts about all sorts of fascinating threatened and endangered creatures - from mirror beetles and Madagascan robber moths to snow leopards and sea stars.

Reviews

[Jasmin Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book of poetry as it is empowering for children. The contents of this book of poetry is adaptable to every year group in a primary school, as it highlights multiple issues as well as speaking about activists (such as Greta Thunberg). I took this book into school, as I knew we were looking at plastic waste and knew there was a great poem in this book that we could talk about as a whole class.
During PPA I brought it out in the staff room and teachers from different year groups were crazy for this book, taking copies of poems from the book to implement into their own planning.
What I really love about the poems in this book is it is written at a level that children can understand, whilst being impactful to child and adult.

[Bethy Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of poems about climate crisis, sustainability, the environment, food waste, plastic, consumptions, and all things eco-friendly!
More suitable for KS2, however there are some poems that I think KS1 would enjoy hearing read aloud!
I would certainly use this collection during a related topic and encourage the chn to think of some of their own. Lends itself to being imitated as a class poem book.
My only issue with the book is that I know chn could actually come up with better poems than many of the ones included. Feels to me that just because a poem might be climate crisis-related, it's just been thrown in there without being quality checked!
Still I fun book regardless though!

[Becki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely collection of easy-to-read poems aimed at primary school children about eco and humanitarian concerns, with ideas for how they can help - eg. give up straws, turn lights off, give meat a miss more often. Plus poems highlighting children who’ve made a bigger impact, whether with clever inventions or activism. Inspiring rather than scary, despite poems about extinction, climate change etc.

One for the classroom or a nice gift for a child who’s concerned about the world.