Blethertoun Braes and other Scots Children's Books

These lines will be instantly familiar to most Scots over 30. The Scots language may not have been welcome in classrooms of the 1960s-80s, but every year would bring a respite in the form of the recitation competition. Poems like The Sair Finger, The Boy in the Train and Crocodile (the last, like so many of these familiar poems is by JK Annand) are burned into memories from Wick to Wigtown.

Poetry for children in Scots has not been a thriving genre, despite the efforts of writers such as Raymond Vettesse and Jackie Kay. Collections such as A Hantle O Verse (NMS) have collected many favourites, but it is great to see the new imprint Itchy Coo ('Braw Books for Bairns o Aw Ages') publishing brand new poems in Scots for kids and following them up with teaching materials and school and library visits. Following the success of King o the Midden, Itchy Coo's latest collection is Blethertoun Braes, poems set around a fictional town.

It's no surprise to see the name here of Matthew Fitt who has long been a champion of an authentic and contemporary Scots and has worked widely in schools bringing lost words back into the classrooms from which they were in the past driven out. Fitt and James Robertson (the imprint's editor) have rounded up a gang to produce these poems, including Angus Glen, Sheena Blackhall and Kirsty Grieve. They have also roped in a top notch illustrator, Bob Dewar, whose colourful and irreverent drawings vividly bring the town of Blethertoun to life.

Blethertoun is an average Scottish town with a terrible football side, a minister who is a stranger to soap, a librarian whose motto is Wheesht or You Will Die and an Italian café selling Tutti Frutti Clootie! Scots is such a good language for comic verse, with its onomatopoeia, chiming and clashing consonants and an endless range of rude words. Although the dialect words (jarmummled, scants, foonert, boakins, powser, tumshies) threaten to steal the show, the real stars are the poets who have produced some very funny pieces.

Blethertoun Braes is aimed at school-aged bairns. Younger children will enjoy Katie's Coo, a picture book containing a handful of favourite traditional rhymes such as Ally Bally, Three Craws and Wee Willie Winkie. It is illustrated with bold, bright drawings by Karen Sutherland.