IT’S THE SOUND OF THE THING

is an exciting new collection of poetry for young people from Maxine Beneba Clarke, one of Australia’s most innovative and celebrated poets.

About The Book

This extraordinary collection celebrates the joy of language and features evocative, enticing poems about everyday life.

The sounds of the block, the boredom of detention, and the happenings in the schoolyard. About candy, peanut butter and pets. About a big brother’s messy room, a grandfather’s fading memory, and a grandmother’s garden magic. Through haiku, sonnets, narrative verse, rhyming couplets, limericks, free verse and more, Maxine invites children and young teens to fall in love with the wonder that is poetry.

Key Marketing Points

• An essential collection of NEW poetry from award-winning Australian writer Maxine Beneba Clarke.

• The one hundred poems inside this groundbreaking collection cover forms as varied as haikus, limericks, sonnets and acrostics – and more.

• Modern themes and the spark of life will help give readers a new appreciation for poetry. This is a fresh, bold collection – not staid, traditional stuff!

• Maxine’s backlist titles – including The Hate Race and Foreign Soil – are widely studied.

• She is also a much-loved face on the school visit circuit, and this new book is an inspired response to teachers begging her for kids’ poetry.

• For kids aged 8 to 12: a must-have for every school library collection.

• Illustrated by Maxine in greyscale pencil drawings with hand-cut collage details.

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the Indie award–winning, ABIA award–winning and Stella Prize–shortlisted author of over ten books for children and adults. Her works include the best-selling fiction collection Foreign Soil, the critically acclaimed memoir The Hate Race, the Victorian Premier’s award–winning poetry collection Carrying the World, the Children’s Book Council of Australia

Honour Book The Patchwork Bike, and the critically acclaimed Kate Greenaway medal–nominated picture book When We Say Black Lives Matter.

It’s the Sound of the Thing has been an absolute joy to write. With limericks, haiku, sonnets, free verse, tongue twisters, found poems, acrostic poems and more, It’s the Sound of the Thing aims to provide a poem, and a poetic form, that every child will love.

Including poems about TikTok dances, unusual pets, hated vegetables, climate change, bubblegum bubbles, Black history, bike riding, poetry, growing up too fast, not growing up fast enough, the scary house down the street, the sounds of the neighbourhood, the seasons, annoying siblings, ageing grandparents and more, It’s the Sound of the Thing is the largest single-authored collection of poetry for children published in Australia in contemporary times.

The aim of the book, apart from creating a really fun read for kids, after the last few years they’ve endured, is to generate excitement about the many possibilities of language and poetry. It’s the Sound of the Thing is the first title I’ve written for a middle-grade audience, and the first poetry collection I’ve written for children, so I’m really excited to get out and about in libraries, bookshops and classrooms, to meet young readers and encourage them to demonstrate and celebrate their poetic selves.

MAXINE BENEBA CLARKE

Author and illustrator

A Note From The Publisher

We’re

all buzzing with excitement to have Maxine join the Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing family. Her work is magnetic and full of life.

We’re feeling very lucky and proud to work with Maxine and bring her first children’s poetry collection into the world. For all those young readers whose exposure to poetry is often via the words of generations past, this electric and eclectic modern collection will reinvigorate homes across the country.

I am personally very excited for you to read a hand-picked selection of poems from It’s the Sound of the Thing. We’ve picked out eleven poems that capture the spark and modern themes across this vibrant collection, and which will definitely leave you desperate to pick up the final copy when it’s available soon! There will also be incredible blackand-white line illustrations from Maxine to accompany poems across the collection.

Teacher’s notes will also be available upon release, and can be found on our website: https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/hardie-grantchildrens-publishing/teacher-notes

Please go forth and read. I can’t wait for the final copies to be in your hands soon.

CHREN BYNG

Publisher, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing