Tag being frightened

Have You Heard?

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Have You Heard?
Hannah Dale
Words & Pictures

With echoes of the traditional Chicken Licken and the falling sky, Hannah Dale has cooked up a rhyming beauty.
A fox – a big red one – is on the prowl; that’s what Mouse decides when he’s awoken from his slumbers one night.
He tells the ‘sleepy, slimy’ frog who passes the news to sparrow, who informs squirrel, who tells owl and owl tells hedgehog

and so on …

until,  so rooster cautions goose, “His claws are like needles, his eyes shine like lights And he’ll eat you up in THREE BIG BITES!”
This well-constructed dialogue poem wherein the fox’s fearsome nature is elaborated upon by each woodland creature in turn, demonstrates the consequences of such speculative chitchat.
Hannah Dale’s beautiful and realistic watercolour paintings capture so well the growing alarm that seizes the animals until all is finally revealed (to readers, though perhaps not the panic-stricken characters herein) in a glorious culmination that will melt your heart.
A captivating read aloud treat.

I’ve signed the charter  

The Great AAA-OOO!

jillrbennett Leave a comment

%0A

The Great AAA-OOO!
Jonny Lambert
Little Tiger Press
I’ve had to read this so many times in quick succession on several occasions that I’ve been rendered almost permanently hoarse – hopefully only a temporary trouble! Just gotta stop all that AAA-OOOing or my voice box will pack up completely and then I’ll be chasing after the brilliant Jonny Lambert demanding compensation for damages… But it is just SOOO brilliant and such STUPENDOUS fun – a crackingly great read aloud – that it makes everything worthwhile.; five packs of throat sweets not withstanding.
Better get on and explain what all the fuss is about. Fuss it certainly is for Mouse, on his way home through the dark rackety wood hears, guess what … AAA-OOO! AAA-OOO! AAA-OOO! Here we go … Owl thinks Mouse is responsible:
“ Twaddle, not I! ” hooted Owl.
“If it was not you, then who,
tu-whit tu-whoo, is making this
awful AAA-OOO?”
Mouse thinks it was Owl but it’s gotta have been somebody so who ? Certainly not Bear; he’s convinced it’ s one of the others … but there it goes again AAA-OOO! AAA-OOO!

%0A

‘KNOCK, SMACK, THWACK.’ That’s Moose demanding to know if one of the three is the perpetrator of the din. Hot denials follow and another howl. By now jitters and chitters have begun to set in: There’s a mention of a monster – “boggley-eyed and blue” – is Mouse’s suggestion. “Or hairy and scary … with big claws.” – that’s Moose’s offering, to which Bear adds … “huge teeth that chomp, gnash and chew!” Owl is having none of it; monster indeed. But then comes an enormous “AAAAA-OOOOO!”
Dove joins those on the branch and then Bear scoops up whimpering Wolf Cub from below. There are mentions of a pie,

%0A

“A pie?” roared Bear.”Save yourselves! Follow me!”

followed hastily by a whole lot of scrambling higher up the tree, which is starting to show signs of stress. A resounding crack! echoes through the woods and catastrophe …

%0A

Oh-oh! the culprit is revealed, apologies proffered and an explanation provided, followed by a mighty hug – Bear to Wolf Cub and a promise – ditto.
Finally peace, harmony and sleep reign over the rackety wood until …
My latest rendering of this corker of a tale resulted in a largish group of 5s to 9s going around a school AAA-OOOing with great gusto, so much so that I felt duty bound to ask them to damp down their howls or we’d all be in trouble. If that isn’t testament enough to the quality of this tale, then nothing is. Dare I say, it’s a howlingly, show-stoppingly, way beyond magnificent, book.

WNDB_Button localbookshops_NameImage-2