What do you think?
Rate this book
Inside Elephant: Winner of the 2025 Children's Poetry Award
Words are birds and songs have wings - fifty-one poems about animals from all around the world.
What's inside the elephant? Where is the goat? Who loves the hyena? When was the horse?
What's inside the elephant? Where is the goat? Who loves the hyena? When was the horse?
66 pages, Paperback
Published December 17, 2021
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 16, 2025
Winner of the Children's Poetry Award 2025
Catherine Poarch’s 'Inside Elephant' captures the spirit of empathy and wonder that poetry can inspire in young minds. Her poems look at the natural world through a child’s eyes, yet never talk down to the reader. The book is beautifully illustrated by Emma Weston, whose artwork perfectly complements Poarch’s vision—gentle, imaginative, and full of warmth.
From ‘Dust’
Laika, the small Jack Russell, spinning through silence, breathing the hush of a planet. No bark, no cry, no sound but the slow thud of her heart. ‘Dust’ retells Laika’s tragic story with heartbreaking restraint. I’ve always had Jack Russell terriers, and that story—a real one—has haunted me all my life. Poarch gives it back its dignity, its stillness.
I am nothing to you.
I am dust that is lost.
I am trial and error
without any cost.
I am blown to the stars
in the heat of a race.
I am Laika.
Just Laika.
The first dog in space.
From ‘Nobody’
Nobody likes a hyena,
the sneer, the laugh, the lope.
That’s the opening of ‘Nobody’, a poem that changed the way I see the animal. I loved all creatures as a child, yet even I struggled with hyenas. Poarch’s empathy makes us pause, reflect, and look again.
From ‘Animals on the Move’
The penguins are flying at Bristol Zoo,
out of a sunny green sky.
And the marionettes, doing slow pirouettes,
are the hippos, just snorkelling by.
The pandas are climbing like lumberjacks
into the shadowy trees.
And while hottest Calcutta is melting like butter,
the elephants swim for the seas.
The meerkats are waiting like jumping beans,
to spring from their dusty tracks.
But in wickedly eerier, whitest Siberia,
wolves are all skiing in packs.
The whales are rising and taking flight,
while the earth spins on its groove.
Whether surfing the tide or abseiling off-side,
there are animals on the move.
‘Animals on the Move’ is an extraordinary poem—a playful, surreal, yet deeply serious look at the impact of climate change. The world literally and metaphorically turns upside down. It’s a clever, thought-provoking way to help children grasp what’s happening to their planet.
This is poetry that educates without preaching—that makes young readers think, laugh, and feel, and the kind of poetry this new award seeks to celebrate.
– John Evans, October 2025
Catherine Poarch’s 'Inside Elephant' captures the spirit of empathy and wonder that poetry can inspire in young minds. Her poems look at the natural world through a child’s eyes, yet never talk down to the reader. The book is beautifully illustrated by Emma Weston, whose artwork perfectly complements Poarch’s vision—gentle, imaginative, and full of warmth.
From ‘Dust’
Laika, the small Jack Russell, spinning through silence, breathing the hush of a planet. No bark, no cry, no sound but the slow thud of her heart. ‘Dust’ retells Laika’s tragic story with heartbreaking restraint. I’ve always had Jack Russell terriers, and that story—a real one—has haunted me all my life. Poarch gives it back its dignity, its stillness.
I am nothing to you.
I am dust that is lost.
I am trial and error
without any cost.
I am blown to the stars
in the heat of a race.
I am Laika.
Just Laika.
The first dog in space.
From ‘Nobody’
Nobody likes a hyena,
the sneer, the laugh, the lope.
That’s the opening of ‘Nobody’, a poem that changed the way I see the animal. I loved all creatures as a child, yet even I struggled with hyenas. Poarch’s empathy makes us pause, reflect, and look again.
From ‘Animals on the Move’
The penguins are flying at Bristol Zoo,
out of a sunny green sky.
And the marionettes, doing slow pirouettes,
are the hippos, just snorkelling by.
The pandas are climbing like lumberjacks
into the shadowy trees.
And while hottest Calcutta is melting like butter,
the elephants swim for the seas.
The meerkats are waiting like jumping beans,
to spring from their dusty tracks.
But in wickedly eerier, whitest Siberia,
wolves are all skiing in packs.
The whales are rising and taking flight,
while the earth spins on its groove.
Whether surfing the tide or abseiling off-side,
there are animals on the move.
‘Animals on the Move’ is an extraordinary poem—a playful, surreal, yet deeply serious look at the impact of climate change. The world literally and metaphorically turns upside down. It’s a clever, thought-provoking way to help children grasp what’s happening to their planet.
This is poetry that educates without preaching—that makes young readers think, laugh, and feel, and the kind of poetry this new award seeks to celebrate.
– John Evans, October 2025
November 6, 2025
Overall, I loved this collection of poetry! I dog-eared so many pages and would reread this book over and over again. Plus, I think the cover is beautiful! It’s a children’s poetry book, but the themes and messages are universal. There is a clever playfulness that is juxtaposed with serious undertones. The experience of reading these poems changes based on how the reader approaches the poems. You can choose whether you want to engage with the playful and educational surface level of the poems, or the deeper, more thought-provoking meaning behind the words. It’s a great book of poetry for people of all ages!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews