Funny, thought-provoking and bursting with curiosity, Wise Up! Wise Down! is a lively conversation between two internationally renowned poets, illustrated by treasured artist Satoshi Kitamura.**Shortlisted for the 2025 CLiPPA - the CLPE Poetry Award, the UK's leading award for published poetry for children.**How can laughter be more powerful than a sword? Why do days have names but not weeks? And do pigeons ever get a craving for c...

Laughter is an eggwith a crick-crack facethat can hide in the heartof the human race.Crack up with John Agard’s hilarious and heartfelt poems about laughter. From scrambled jokes on toast to a crocodile's smile, this joyous collection of poems celebrates the laughter that lights up our lives, and is guaranteed to get you giggling.Full of Agard’s signature wit and playfulness, this eggstraordinary illustrated collectio...

In the title story, Inspector Dreadlock Holmes and his sidekick Rudeyard Fly are sent for by the Criminal Investigation Department of Middleham-by-Sea - a little town known for tea shops, pet shops, and florists - in short, a rustic retreat for naughty weekends. Keen to kick-start their diversity policy, the Department sends for two Black cops who see this as a chance to prove their cross-cultural mettle and solve the brutal attack on Lord Montagu, a controversial political figure found un...

Books contain countless tales—but what if Book told its own story? From clay tablets to e-readers, here is a quirky, kid-friendly look at the book.Books are one of humankind’s greatest forms of expression, and now Book, in a witty, idiosyncratic voice, tells us the inside story. A wonderfully eccentric character with strong opinions and a poetic turn of phrase, Book tells of a journey from papyrus scrolls to medieval manuscripts to printed paper and beyond...

Funny, thought-provoking, and bursting with curiosity, Wise Up! Wise Down! is a lively conversation between two internationally known poets, illustrated by acclaimed artist Satoshi Kitamura.How can laughter be more powerful than a sword? Why do days have names but not weeks? And do pigeons ever get a craving for cake? Two friends, esteemed poets John Agard and JonArno Lawson, take us on an inspiring, hilarious, and wondrous journey through poetry, asking q...

In these two animal stories from the Caribbean, find out in the first why Tiger wanted to get rid of all the other animals and keep the jungle for himself and what clever Anansi did about it, and in the second how shy Owl nearly lost everything because he didn't have the courage to show his face.Topaz/Band 13 books offer longer and more demanding reads for children to investigate and evaluate.Text type: Two stories from another culture.The feelings roller ...

John Agard has been broadening the canvas of British poetry for the past 40 years with his mischievous, satirical fables which overturn all our expectations. His ninth Bloodaxe collection, Border Zone, explores a far-reaching canvas of British/Caribbean transatlantic connections, sweeping across centuries and continents. His border territory ranges from Love in a Sceptred Isle, a novella-like narrative poem of a romance between Barbados-born photographer, Victor, and Welsh librarian, Rhian...

“A beautiful poetic and visual delight” Joseph CoelhoA BEAUTIFULLY EVOCATIVE STORY OF A CHILD'S JOURNEY TO ENGLAND ON BOARD EMPIRE WINDRUSH, FROM AN INTERNATIONALLY CELEBRATED, MULTI-AWARD-WINNING POET AND AN EXTRAORDINARY DEBUT ILLUSTRATOR."you're stepping into historybringing your Caribbean eyeto another horizon"With one last hug, ...

John Agard has been broadening the canvas of British poetry for the past 35 years with his mischievous, satirical fables which overturn all our expectations. In this new collection, he puts on the mask of Moses Maimonides (aka the Rambam), the medieval Jewish rabbi and physician who wrote his Guide of the Perplexed in Arabic at a time when Judaism, Islam and Christianity cross-fertilised each other in Moorish Spain.Now the ghost of Maimonides returns to the contemporary wo...

Creature-of-No-Words didn't know what to call being happy, or sad, or angry, or lonely—he just felt them.But then one day, he meets Creature-of-Words, who very soon helps him to fill in all the gaps...A collaboration between award-winning poet John Agard and internationally acclaimed illustrator Satoshi Kitamura is always a celebration of words and pictures. This powerful picture book about communication and friendship is a tour de force.

Internationally acclaimed poet John Agard recalls the journey made by the thousands of Caribbean children and their families who traveled to Britain between 1948 and 1971 as part of the Windrush generation.With one last hug, Windrush child says goodbye to his grandmother and the shores of his Caribbean home before embarking on an adventure across the ocean—under a sky full of promise—to an unknown horizon. With sensitivity and tender lyricism, world-renowned and mu...

A wonderful anthology of poetry by award winning poets John Agard and Grace Nichols, brought to life with beautiful illustrations by Satoshi Kitamura.Purple/Band 8 books offer developing readers literary language, with some challenging vocabulary.Text type: A poetry book.An illustration on pages 22 and 23 encourages children to recap the poems they have read in the anthology.Curriculum links: Art and Design: Portraying relationships; Music: Play ...