The Tippity Top of the Tomato Tree
“There was once a butterfly who was so sad to see
as he couldn’t get to the tippity top of the tomato tree.”
I wrote this poem several years ago for my friend’s son. He was three years old and loved butterflies and tomatoes.
I finished the first draft in an evening, reading it out again and again until the rhythm sounded right. The poem tells about a little butterfly with one wing who really wants to get a juicy tomato from the top of the tomato tree.
In the years since I wrote it, several children have had it as a bedtime story which is a really lovely feeling as bedtime reading was so important to me when I was little. I can still remember lines from Roald Dahl’s “The Crocodile”, Roger Morgan’s “Katy’s Curls”, and Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher”.
And, yes, if you are reading it out loud you have to do the voices.
