Review: Sister Madge's Book of Nuns

You know that laugh you get (or used to get) at school when you are not meant to laugh. Maybe the teacher has already shushed you ... but you can't help it. It has begun. The shoulders are going. The gasp for breath. Maybe there are some tears rolling now. Well, if you want that giggle again, this is the book for you.

I should say, that I am really quite easily amused but that's what I was doing reading this book. I was laughing ... at nuns. Even that gives me a naughty snicker. No, I was roaring with laugher at nuns. Surely that is wrong? Ah, but if laughing at nuns is wrong I don't to be right.

Trust me, you will understand when you have a read yourself. I challenge you NOT to laugh at the nuns from Our Lady of Immense Proportions.

After 26 years Sister Madge's Book of Nuns is back in a new luscious, full-colour hardback with two brand new poems. This book was first published in 1986. 26 years later it has been reissued to share with a whole new generation.

There are twelve wonderfully, warped poems in the book such as Sister Flo and the Veges where the vegetables in Sister Flo's garden verbally protest to having manure thrown on them. How does Sister Flo respond? By digging them up and putting them in her dinner. Do you think that was the end of it?

Alas, the veges got her back
Flo suffered from a gas attack
So noisy was her sorry plight
It kept the neighbours up all night.

If you don't want to take my word for it, the one and only Graeme Base says "I love this book."

Read this and giggle. Enough said!


Title: Sister Madge's Book of Nuns
Author: Craig Mcleod
Illustrator: Craig Smith
Publisher: Working Title Press, $24.95 RRP
Publication Date: March 2012
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781921504433
For ages: 5+
Type: Poetry Picture Book