The Weight Of Water
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Sarah Crossan |
Bloomsbury |
978-1408823002 |
January 2012 |
240 pp |
Whole book read |
Read On? n/a |
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I come to a verse novel with a hope that it will live up to some of the best writing that has been done in this genre. One of the most powerful Young Adult novels ever written, and an enduring favourite of mine, is Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff. Love That Dog and Heartbeat both by Sharon Creech are two other verse novels that I would recommend without reservation.
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The Storyteller’s Secret
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Tony Mitton, ill. Peter Bailey |
David Fickling |
978 0 385 61509 9 |
Jun 2009 |
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What’s so good about this book? Lots of things, but the structure is particularly neat, since it conjures up the experience of a live storytelling event. The reader, or listener, fulfils the role of audience for the storyteller, who is known simply as ‘Teller’. The author vividly portrays for us the village setting and the character of the storyteller who appears one day and opens up new ways of thinking. |
The Land Of Nursery Rhyme
Alice Daglish & Ernest Rhys, ill. Charles Folkard |
Orion |
978-1-84255-776-1 |
Autumn 2008 |
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The Secret Life of Pants
Roger Stevens |
A & C Black |
0713676310 |
Aug 2006 |
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Perfect for reading on a dull, wet day, it’s impossible not to feel one’s mood being elevated and enhanced by always bright ‘ sometime brash ‘ poetic offerings presented in ‘The Secret Life of Pants’, a pant-astically absorbing collection of new poems to pamper oneself with’ |
The Ghost of My Pussycat’s Bottom
Mike Jubb |
Back to Front |
1904529232 |
Jul 2006 |
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‘The Ghost of my Pussycat’s Bottom’ is a wide-ranging collection of poetry written by Mike Jubb. Material traverses the irreverent such as the eponymous poem ‘The Ghost of my Pusscat’s Bottom’, the stately and elegant such as ‘Midnight Meeting’ which takes its inspiration from Edward Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ and the deceptively simply with almost ethereal beauty including ‘The Emperor and the Nightingale’, told in the form of three linked haiku to form a rensaku. |
The Tail of the Trinosaur
Charles Causley |
Jane Nissen Books |
1903252237 |
Apr 2006 |
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It is perhaps one of the paradoxes of the publishing and pitching of books for children that there are so few novels written in poetic form for new readers when rhythm, rhyme and a sense of time appeal so much providing highly accessible means for first independent encounters with stories and that warming, phosphorescent glow of language presented in its best possible placement’ |
The Carnival of the Animals
Ed. Benson, Chernaik, Herbert Ills. Kitamura |
Walker Books |
1844280217 |
Dec 2005 |
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Instantly recognisable and highly distinctive, Satoshi Kitamura has developed an illustrative style that speaks the unspoken sensitivities and imaginings of the ‘inner-child’. |
Hey Crazy Riddle
Trish Cooke |
Frances Lincoln |
1845073789 |
Mar 2006 |
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The mood is light, the rhythm is tight in this collection of fast tempo poems published as the second book in Frances Lincoln’s new fiction range for 8 ‘ 12 year olds. Trish Cooke ‘ familiar to many as the award-winning author of popular picture book ‘So Much’ ‘ brings lightness of touch and great verve to these exuberant explanations of how dog lost his bone, why wasp can’t make honey and’ of course, the eponymous ‘Hey Crazy Riddle’. |
Watch Out for Sprouts! Poems, pictures, doodles and serious thinking.
Simon Bartram |
Templar Publishing |
Oct 2005 |
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Children who have met Bartram’s The Man on the Moon, or Dougal, The Deep Sea Diver, will already know that they are in for a treat with this concoction from the same author. Any parents who haven’t yet introduced their offspring to Bartram’s vivid colours and writing – well, what are you waiting for? |