My Beautiful Voice by Josephy Coelho illustrated by Allison Colpoys

"My heart starts booming, my skin becomes a raging river,

I feel scared and nervous inside. But then.. "

"I feel my voice inside me ... It feels like it wants to be heard."

The terror of public speaking is a genuine feeling for many adults and children. Add to this publicly reading a poem of your own composition and that fear is multiplied many times over. My Beautiful Voice is the story of one boy and the way he overcomes his fears with the help of a wonderful, vivacious, energetic and loving teacher. Miss Floatsam is a force of nature. When our narrator's work is snatched by a young girl in the class "Miss Flotsam gazes at her with eyes that can turn thunder into summer rain."

When you share this book with your class, though, you will need to be prepared for the ending - spoiler alert- we never hear the actual poem that the child has so carefully crafted.  I call this a Harvey Slufenburger moment. Have you read the famous book by John Burningham where we travel with Santa on his long and dangerous journey to the home of Harvey Slufenburger all the way anticipating the wonderful Christmas present? I love the way children always sigh over the words "I wonder what it was". 

With My Beautiful voice though, we do have some hints about the poem and so, after reading this book for the first time, you could go back and gather up some of the possible ideas:

"A flutter of fabric filled with the spice of colour."

"quiet heroes and beautiful unheard songs."

"like her long-lost languages in shut up tombs and finding new accents in rainbow bustling markets."

I highly recommend My Beautiful Voice as a book well worth adding to your Primary school library picture book collection or perhaps you will shelve it (as my copy has been classified) at 361.37 which oddly is a number for social work and specifically volunteers. 

Publisher blurb: Follow a child who is so shy she doesn't speak. With the encouragement of an enchanting and magical teacher, she writes a poem. But a poem is meant to be read aloud! She musters all her courage, stands at the front of the class and shows her classmates that she does have a voice. And her voice is BEAUTIFUL! The perfect way to encourage empathy in young children and show shy children how to feel brave.

Joseph Coelho lives in the UK and from a young boy he wrote poetry: I wrote poems about how I was feeling, poems about life at school, angry poems, sad poems, funny poems and sometimes I’d nervously share those poems in my drama class. Perhaps My Beautiful Voice is partially autobiographical. 

Allison Colpoys lives in Melbourne - so we have another delicious book mystery - How did the pubisher Frances Lincoln (UK) bring these two book creators together.