I loved nursery rhymes as a child. Now my granddaughter comes home from pre-school singing them, a great reminder of those days long ago.
I love the rhyme and the rhythm of a poem in verse, and sometimes you just have to sing it out loud! How to get there is the hard part. And you know there will be multiple revisions along the way.
Here's my first version of the opening poem in my picture book NAME THAT DOG!—
If you're going to get a puppy
then you need a puppy name.
One that gets his tail to wagging
when you play a puppy game.
A name your dog will come to.
One that rolls right off your tongue.
A name that says "I love you."
One that says "let's have some fun."
For every dog is special,
and no dog is quite the same.
So jump into the alphabet
to find the perfect name!
Not exactly what I was hoping for. The only part that I really liked was the ending. It wasn't just about the rhyme. It was word choice, rhythm and tone. How could I make the reader feel the excitement and fun of the dogs in the poems to come.
So I started making lists. Lists of words that had anything to do with dogs. How they looked, how they sounded, what they liked.
Here's what I ended up with—
Happy puppies,
scrappy puppies,
puppies playing games.
Shaggy puppies,
waggy puppies,
each one needs a name.
A stick-fetching
ball-catching
name that you can call
A yip-yapping
water-lapping
puppy, big or small.
Perky puppies,
peppy puppies—
none of them the same.
So jump into
the alphabet and
pick a puppy name!
I had fun with the words, the rhythm, and with alliteration and internal rhyme. It was a perfect start to my book about dogs and their names, with a poem that sings!
Word choice and poetry is not just for poems in verse. Check out my blog post for ways to make your picture book feel lyrical on the Writing Day Workshops blog.
Happy Poetry Month 2026!