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Hard-Boiled Bugs for Breakfast: And Other Tasty Poems by Jack Prelutsky ill. Ruth Chan

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 20 Apr 2021

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“Nonsense confidently delivered in lines that scan satisfyingly (“My dragon is mad at my ogre, / My ogre is mad at my gnome, / My gnome will not talk to my goblin. / It’s truly upsetting my home”), surrounded by Chan’s exuberantly cartooned black-and-white drawings.” Horn Book
“A quick-witted delight.” KIRKUS

A new collection from the celebrated first US Young People’s Poet Laureate  Jack Prelutsky, featuring more than one hundred  poems.

Illustrator Ruth Chan’s lively and hilarious black-and-white art jumps off every page and illuminates a wide array of poetic forms, from haiku to concrete poems and everything in between.
Follow Ruth Chan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohtruth/

Jack Prelutsky, now over 80 (the video below is from 10 years ago), is America’s favourite children’s poet. The UK poet who reminds me most of Prelutsky (in his ability to scan silly rhymes together) is the very underrated Colin West.

 

 

Beautiful Day!: Petite Poems for All Seasons by Rodoula Pappa ill. Seng Soun Ratanavanh

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 8 Apr 2021

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A picture book of haiku-inspired poems celebrating the four seasons.

In simple, poetic verse, a child observes their world from spring to summer, and autumn through winter, in this gentle ode to the seasons, accompanied by exquisite illustrations [see examples]

Rodoula Pappa is a Greek author and translator.

We love Seng Soun Ratanavanh’s illustrations and strongly recommend you visit the artist’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sengsounratanavanh/

Her first book as author-illustrator, Gaspard Dans La Nuit, was recently awarded the Prix Landerneau 2021 album jeunesse.

 

 

Nature Trail by Benjamin Zephaniah ill. Nila Aye

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A joyful celebration of nature and the wonder of the world around us by legendary poet and performer Benjamin Zephaniah.

At the bottom of my garden, there’s a hedgehog and a frog,
And a lot of creepy-crawlies living underneath a log…

All around us, from parks to gardens and flowerpots to pavements, there’s a world of wonder just waiting to be discovered. Why not look a little closer and see what you find? This joyful celebration of nature reminds us all to take a closer look at the world around us, and enjoy the wonder of nature wherever we find it. Packed with animals and minibeasts galore, this imaginative rhyming text is perfect for reading aloud.

The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems chosen by Brian Moses

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 18 Mar 2021

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A new anthology of humorous children’s poems from Macmillan, curated by Brian Moses, who has been a Macmillan children’s poet for many years. Check out Lost Magic: The Very Best of Brian Moses, a collection which includes performance stalwarts such as ‘Walking with My Iguana‘ ‘The Lost Angels’, ‘Aliens Stole My Underpants’, ‘Behind the Staffroom Door’, ‘Lost Magic’, ‘The Sssnake Hotel’, ‘A Feather from an Angel’, and ‘Cakes in the Staffroom’:

Perfect d for reading aloud. Explore poems about pets, peculiar creatures, school, family, fantasy, dinosaurs, dragons, space, and just plain NONSENSE.

The anthology includes work by Brian Bilston, Sue Hardy-Dawson, Pie Corbett*, Paul Cookson, Liz Brownlee, Mike Jubb, James Carter and Rachel Rooney.

*Corbett’s Wikipedia entry is in need of amendment/updating

Stars With Flaming Tails by Valerie Bloom ill. Ken Wilson-Max

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 16 Feb 2021

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Valerie Bloom is one of ACHUKA’s favourite poets and this is her first new solo collection for several years. Bold black illustrations from Ken Wilson-Max throughout.

Organised into poems about Family And Friends, Fun With Forms, Our World, and Unbelievable.

Bloom is a poet who never seems short of material. She can write about anything. And there are poems here about welcoming a new child, pancakes, washing and tidying, hair combing, extreme weather, a volcano, a forest, dangerous animals, a dissatisfied nose, the colour of dreams and many more (in excess of 60 altogether).

The section giving examples of different poetic forms (Echo Verse, Rondel, Skeltonic Verse etc.) makes this an invaluable collection for teachers and young writers looking to experiment.  And, more generally, Bloom’s mastery of rhythm and rhyme and the natural way in which she slips from the concrete to the figurative, will have readers spellbound.

Very highly recommended.

Winter Tales by Dawn Casey ill. Zanna Goldhawk

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 12 Feb 2021

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A treasury of stories celebrating the wonders of winter, and the qualities within that warm our hearts through the long cold. Particularly relevant in the week of its selection as Book of the Day, with the UK gripped in an icy blast.

The book, published Autumn 2020, brings together a selection of wintery tales from all over the world – from North America to Siberia, Scotland, France, Russia and Norway. It has beautifully detailed artwork by illustrator Zanna Goldhawk, and is a book to be treasured in any family’s home library.

Follow Zanna Goldhawk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zannagoldhawk/

Illustrated products are available from the online shop Papiopress, jointly owned with her husband and co-illustrator, Harry.

The King With Dirty Feet by Sally Pomme Clayton ill. Rhiannon Sanderson

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Inspired by an Indian and Bangladeshi folktale, The King And The Cobbler.

There once was a king who hated bath time so much that he never washed. He was a very smelly king!

The king is finally persuaded to bathe in the river but no matter how clean the rest of him is, his feet stay dirty. The people sweep away all the dirt in the land – but the air is choked with dust. The dust gets washed away but now the land is flooded with water. An enormous tapestry is sewn to cover the whole kingdom but now nothing will grow on the land… What is to be done?

At last one old man steps forward with leather and a pair of scissors … and to the king’s amazement he creates – the first ever pair of shoes!

Follow the illustrator on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhitown/

Tales From the Hinterland by Melissa Albert ill. Nick Hayes

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 1 Feb 2021

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“Dark, demanding and delicious.” KIRKUS

from the author of The Hazel Wood…

A highly anticipated collection of twelve deeply creepy pitch-dark stories each with a gorgeously illustrated lino print title page by Nick Hayes. The story ‘The Clockwork Bride’ is worth the cover price alone. The writing throughout the collection is pitch-perfect, a joy to hear in one’s mind; every sentence an invitation to read aloud. We all need range in our reading but alongside books like this much contemporary young  feels insipid. Tales From The Hinterland is a book that deserves to have been published in hardback before being available in paperback.

Follow the illustrator on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickhayesillustration/
Follow Melissa Albert on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissaalbertauthor/

Comic Classics: Treasure Island – Comic Classics by Jack Noel

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Previously: Comic Classics – Great Expectations

OLD books get NEW doodles – it’s the classics as you’ve never seen them before!

A hilarious new series that brings the classics to life with illustrations by Jack Noel. 

Jim Hawkins spends his life helping out at his mum’s boring old inn by the sea, wishing he could sail away and have adventures. But when an old sea captain turns up with a secret, it’s the start of a bigger adventure than Jim could ever have imagined – soon he’s on a ship on the trail of buried treasure, accompanied by a suspicious sailor named Long John Silver … Will Jim escape the pirates? Or will he walk the plank?


 

Weird, Wild & Wonderful: The Poetry World of James Carter by James Carter ill. Neal Layton

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Packed with James Carter’s most popular and requested poems, plus 8 brand new poems, this is an important collection from one of the top children’s poets writing today.

Expect to hear the moon speak, explore a magic wood and play air guitar. You’ll meet wolves, elephants and a dung beetle; you’ll get close to a gorilla and sing a lullaby to a woolly mammoth; you might even meet an alien in a library.