Blood, bones and bladders
A doctor from Northwick Park Hospital will be waxing lyrical on National Poetry Day (October 3) with the publication of what she believes is the first children’s book of rhyming poems about the human body.
Dr Hannah Weston-Simons was helping her son with a school project when she realised she had never seen a book of rhyme about how the body works. In response, she combined a lifelong love of poetry with her knowledge as a GP to write Blood, Bones and Bladders - the poetry of your body.
The book contains 27 brightly illustrated rhymes about body parts, offering a fun and educational resource for children. Each organ has its own poem to explain what it does.
Hannah, who divides her time between working as a GP in Kent and at a cancer investigations unit at the hospital, said: “It took about two years of bike rides and walks to come up with all the rhymes.
“My four children have been subjected to every iteration over the dinner table and at bedtime, so I think everyone is happy it has been published now!”
The book was written in memory of her Grandpa Thomas Smith.
“Grandpa loved rhymes and poetry and used to recite them or make up his own all the time. We’d always get a rhyme in our birthday cards and that is most probably where my love of it came from.”
So, what was the most challenging poem to put together?
“The spleen which I almost left out! It was one of the last poems I wrote and I made him into a vampire character, as one of the organ’s jobs is to get rid of aged blood cells.”
Blood, Bones and Bladders by Brown Dog Books is available from www.bloodbonesandbladders.co.uk