Personal Choice Volume 2 No.44

Be Nice to Rhubarb

Please say a word for rhubarb,

It hasn't many chums

For people like banana splits

Or fancy juicy plums.

They slice the sweet, sweet melon

Or gather tasty pears,

But if you mention rhubarb pie

You get the rhudest stares.

They praise the yellow lemon,

The golden orange cool,

But rhubarb's never mentioned —

Or that's the general rhule.

For rhubarb stewed and blushing

 I've only this to say,

If they should cast an unkind barb

 I'll see they rhu the day.

Max Fatchen

Max Fatchen, (1920 - 2012) was an Australian children's writer and journalist. He spent his childhood on an Adelaide Plains farm at Angle Vale. He learned to drive a team of Clydesdale horses and did part of his secondary school studies at home, driving his horse and buggy once a week to Gawler High School. He entered journalism as a copy boy, and after five years in the Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force during World War II, he became a journalist with The News and later The Advertiser. Four decades of writing for children. He wrote 20 books; his novels appear in seven countries, and his poetry appears throughout the English-speaking world. He died on 14 October 2012 in his sleep.