Welcome to the Haiku Zoo!

Meet Lion, the first animal we’ll visit on our trip to the Haiku Zoo.

Featuring fantastic illustrations from Dunstan Carter and stunning Haiku from Mark Watson, here comes a brand new twist on the short, Japanese poetry form, the Haiku.

A delightful new animal books series by Mark Watson, author of the multi-award-winning, bestselling children’s picture books “Milo & Ze”, “The Shark in the Park”, “The Travelling Circus” and “The Hairy Fairy”.

Haiku

What is a Haiku?

A Haiku is a very short poem with only three lines.

To understand how a Haiku works we need to know what a syllable is.

A syllable is a unit of pronunciation, a piece of a word.

Each piece is one vowel sound, ignoring the consonants.

So, “Lion” has two syllables.

“Boom” has one syllable.

“Integrity” has four syllables.

Now we know what a syllable is the next thing we need to know is the form of a Haiku.

A Haiku must only have three lines.

Each line has a number of syllables.

The first line has FIVE syllables.

The second line has SEVEN syllables.

The third line also only has FIVE syllables.

So a Haiku has a total of only SEVENTEEN syllables.

Hooray, we know what a Haiku is, when you finish reading the Haiku Zoo there are some exercises to do at the back and some activities to do with your friends in the classroom.

Welcome to the Haiku Zoo…