A GP from Northwick Park Hospital is set to release a unique children’s book of rhyming poems about the human body on National Poetry Day, October 3.
Dr. Hannah Weston-Simons was inspired to write Blood, Bones and Bladders while helping her son with a school project. Realising there wasn’t a book of rhymes explaining how the body works, she decided to create one. The book includes 27 poems, each focusing on different body parts, aiming to educate children in a fun and engaging way.
Hannah, who works as a GP in Kent and also at a cancer investigations unit at Northwick Park, 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 is dedicated to her Grandpa, Thomas Smith, who shared a love of poetry. “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,” she explained.
One of the most challenging poems to write was about the spleen. “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,” Hannah said.
Blood, Bones and Bladders is published by Brown Dog Books and is available at www.bloodbonesandbladders.co.uk.
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