Similes

Open your book, Poorvi, at page 142 and read the poem 'The Kites' again. On pages 143 and 144, your book shows you a special way the poet compares things.

In the first stanza, the poet says the kites fly 'like coloured birds'. Kites and birds are different things, but both fly high in the sky, and the kites are bright and colourful. Comparing them helps us see the kites in our mind.

In the second stanza, the child wishes to be 'light as air'. Air is so light that we cannot feel its weight at all. So the child wants to be so light that a kite could carry them up.

A comparison like these, made with the word 'like' or 'as', is called a SIMILE. Some more similes: 'as busy as a bee', 'as brave as a lion', 'she ran like the wind'.

Be careful: not every sentence with 'like' is a simile. 'I like kites' only tells what someone enjoys; it does not compare two things. A simile always compares one thing with another.