Pumpkin Grumpkin

Extract

My Sister by Margaret Mahy (New Zealand)

My sister’s remarkably light,

She can float to a fabulous height.

It’s a troublesome thing,

But we tie her with string,

And we use her instead of a kite.

The Puffin Who Lived in a Muffin by Yansan Agard (Guyana/USA)

There once was a black and white puffin

Who lived in a blueberry muffin.

Blueberries were halls

And all of the walls.

Believe you me, I am not bluffin’.

Puffin came home real late

And he ate and he ate and he ate

One blueberry, two blueberry and more.

He ate up the walls and all of the halls

Till his house was buffin but floor.

The little black and white puffin

He so loved the taste of blueberry muffins

That his house became nuffin but nuffin.

Out in the Desert by Charles Causley (England)

Out in the desert lies the Sphinx

It never eats and it never drinx

It’s body’s quite solid without any chinx

And when the sky’s all purple and pinx

(As if it was painted with coloured inx)

And the sun it ever so swiftly sinx

Behind the hills in a couple of twinx

You may hear (if you’re lucky) a bell that clinx

And also tolls and also tinx

And they say at the very same sound the Sphinx

It sometimes smiles and it sometimes winx

But nobody knows just what it thinx.