Tag Laura Mucha

Porridge Please!

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Porridge Please!
Laura Mucha and Marc Boutavant
Walker Books

This is a terrific fairy tale spin off featuring a host of favourite characters that visit a little bear who is trying his very best to read the last page of his new book. The poor bear has had a continuous stream of visitors each wanting some of his ‘sumptuous scrumptious porridge’

as the Little Pig calls it when he comes a KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK knocking.

Having kindly fed Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood and three pigs,

Bear’s feeling frazzled when there comes yet another visitor – Granny supposedly – telling a tale of woe. But suddenly a realisation dawns: ‘THAT WASN’T GRANNY. Red Riding Hood said she was eaten by the Big Bad Wolf’. Time for some quick thinking and a clever ploy from Bear.

There’s so much to love about this book: Bear’s problem solving, his love of story books, and the tastiness of porridge: three vital ingredients in Laura Mucha’s telling and Marc Boutavant’s hilarious scenes of of the dramatic events.

In case you’re wondering whether Bear ever did get to read that last page, you’ll have to get your own copy of their book to find out. One thing that is certain though is that young listeners will endorse the READ IT AGAIN! plea on the final endpapers.


Celebrate!

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Celebrate!
Laura Mucha, illustrated by Hannah Tolson
Nosy Crow

Wow! What a massive and challenging undertaking to research and present fifty festivals and celebrations from all over the world. This is what writer Laura and illustrator Hannah have done, in collaboration with the British Museum.


By bringing people together, festivals help create a sense of belonging – of being connected – be that to a country, a religion, a family or another group with a shared interest. The first nine festivals in this book are celebrated all over the world, so next time you participate in Diwali or Christmas festivities for example, think how many others all over the globe are doing so too.


Then come ten celebrated in different European countries, followed by in turn seven in parts of the African continent, six in countries of Asia, the same number in North America. We learn of nine celebrated in countries of South and Central America. Inti Raymi is when the Inca people of Peru, many with their faces painted yellow, honour Inti (their sun god) by making music and dancing.


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The final three we’re introduced to are observed in countries of Oceania.


During my travels to India I’ve participated in quite a lot of festivals, mainly Hindu ones, at various times of the year, and have also enjoyed being an onlooker at secular and religious festivals there and in other parts of the world. However, I was fascinated to learn of a fair number that were new to me: it’s great to discover new rituals, celebratory dress, dance and music. One such is the Golden Stilt Festival that marks 30th September 1830 when Belgium officially became a country. Its highlight is the Fight for the Golden Stilt.

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With her vibrant scenes, Hannah Tolson’s illustrations really help bring each celebration to life on the page. She does so in such a way that readers are likely to notice different details each time they revisit the book.

Welcome to Our Table

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Welcome to Our Table
Laura Mucha & Ed Smith, illustrated by Harriet Lynas
Nosy Crow

Poet, Laura Mucha and chef cum cookbook writer, Ed Smith, will make your taste buds tingle with their food related descriptions of dishes from all around the world. Inevitably there are some that didn’t make this vegan reviewer’s mouth water for, in addition to the fruits – several double spreads are devoted to these and tomatoes get an entire page – vegetables (green and otherwise), spices, herbs, nuts and sweets, there are eggs, fish (including the dangers caused by over-fishing) and meat of various kinds.

After a look at the various tools people in different parts of the world use to eat their food, followed by a consideration of taste, smell

and texture of foods, the authors focus our attention on staple savouries: ‘Remarkable rice’, ‘Amazing Maize’ ‘Brilliant Bread’, ‘Noodles, Noodles’, among which are not only spaghetti and vermicelli, but also Ukrainian lokshyna.

As well as entrees

and side courses in abundance, the authors look at milk including non dairy kinds, sweet pastries and puddings and ice creams. Foods of the future – those grown in laboratories are pondered upon, as is the possibility of more people turning to insects and seaweed for food.

On the final pages children wearing national costume demonstrate how to give appreciation for what you have eaten and how to say goodbye to those who have shared your food; there’s a world map surrounded by flags of some of the countries whose foods were mentioned; the countries and places featured are listed and then it’s ‘The end’ in 20 languages.

Harriet Lynas images are brightly coloured and every spread includes a child or children – a diverse lot – interacting in one way or another with the food presented thereon.

A lovely celebration of difference, showing how we are all linked by the fact that we eat and for the most part, enjoy so doing.

Being Me

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Being Me
Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Laura Mucha, illustrated by Victoria Jane Wheeler
Otter-Barry Books

I’ve tended to use picture books to open up discussions about feelings in the classroom, especially with younger children but now this, subtitled “Poems about Thoughts, Worries and Feelings’ is a superb anthology of poems by three accomplished contemporary poets that would definitely work equally well with children from KS1 up.

Speaking directly to youngsters are almost fifty poems focussing on the topics that they care deeply about and unless they have opportunities to talk about how they feel about say, loss or sadness, feelings of isolation can be the result.

One way to counteract such feelings is to take a walk in nature as Matt suggests in Forest Song: ‘there is music in the forest / every leaf a different note / as the wind -conducted branches / play the tune the raindrops wrote // so, walk beneath the canopy / and know that you belong / to the purest ancient melody / as forest sings its song’. I’m sure those words will resonate with all of us after everything that’s happened during the past year when so many of us have found comfort in the natural world.

Another of Matt’s poems talks about those awful butterflies that are the result of first day nerves and how one understanding teacher, Mr Mawhinney made all the difference.


Books are one of my first go to comfort places and Liz’s In the Heart of a Book speaks to the power of story; Here’s part of it : ‘ I found myself a story / with a place in me to store it // I found myself a wide, new world / so set off to explore it //… I found a pool of sadness / and the strength to manage it // … I found place to rest my head // while my worries unplug / I found a curl of comfort / where each word was a hug // … I found a pair of magic wings / and flew into the light’

Feeling alone in your sadness? What better place to visit than Laura’s The Land of the Blue to know that feeling sad is OK. The final verse says this: ‘Across the valley it waits for you,/ a place they call The Land of Blue / and going there will help you know / how others feel when they are low.’

Sometimes there’s nothing better than the kindness of a Friend as Laura shows here:

Discovering your own kindness within and sharing it with others is equally powerful as the final words in Liz’s Kindness acknowledges ‘and where you give it grows and grows / until one day it overflows ‘

Finally (although I could go on talking about every poem in this book) in Bottled Up Laura highlights how crucial it is to be able to open up about whatever it is that’s troubling you …

Very much in tune with the feelings the three poets have written of are the quirky black and white illustrations by new illustrator Victoria Jane Wheeler; and the book concludes with a note from developmental psychologist Dr Karen Goodall that includes some suggestions as to how an adult might open up a discussion.

A special book that I strongly recommend for both school and home collections.

Belonging Street / Dear Ugly Sisters and other poems

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It’s always exciting to receive new poetry books and these two from Otter-Barry Books are smashers.

Belonging Street
Mandy Coe

In this collection Mandy Coe has written about urban life, wild life and family life, sometimes all of them in the same poem. There’s definitely something for every taste and every mood from story poems, puzzling ones, riddles and those that really touch the emotions.

What Mandy does so well is to help readers to see the beauty and the magic of the everyday world whether she’s writing about Helping Hands:
Grandad’s hands are brown / and rough with oil. / Grandma has a green thumb / potatoes pushing up the soil. // My aunt’s hands are pale, / inked with many colours. / My uncle’s hands are strong. / dusted with sugar and flour. // My stepdad’s hand uncurls / to reveal a coin’s bright shine. / My mother’s strong hands / sew each stitch in time. // And when any of us fall, / these hands will help us stand, / these mending, baking, making, / lending, helping hands.

Or talking of butterflies as in She Belongs to the World:
Drifting through Albania / from mountain tops to forest floor, / she is flutur. …
In Norway, / among black pines, a brilliant jewel, / she is sommerfugl’ … ‘Tumbling from the sky, / summer has arrived. / She is Butterfly.’.

And how magical-sounding are these lines from Animals Name the Constellations:
‘What’s in the stars up above?
asked Tadpole of his father.
It’s Silver Spawn in the Black Pond,
the Lily, Carp and Beaver.
Have they been there long?
Forever my love, forever.‘

Love Mandy Coe’s illustrations for this poem

And I’m definitely going to try The Rhythm of Sleep if I find myself unable to drop off at night. It would also make a marvellous relaxation ending to a yoga class except that one doesn’t actually want the participants to ‘slip into sleep.’ Not until they get home anyhow.

Dear Ugly Sisters and other poems
Laura Mucha, illustrated by Tania Rex

This is Laura Mucha’s debut collection although readers may have come across her poems through workshops, festivals, anthologies and other places where poetry is celebrated including the Caterpillar Poetry Prize that she was awarded in 2019 for the title poem. Now we have an entire book and that is most certainly something to be celebrated.

Her writing is wide-ranging and there are several other fairytale-related offerings such as Rapunzel, Did You Sleep Well? – a superbly playful take on The Princess and the Pea from the viewpoints of the pea, the prince and the princess; and Three Bears VS Goldilocks where Goldilocks puts her case concluding it thus: ‘ The Three Bears need to drop their charges, or they’’ll be / contested. / Their lodgings are so terrible, that THEY should be / arrested.’

Each one fresh and accessible, there are shape poems, haiku, poems constructed for the sheer joy of hearing their words said aloud as in Words That Make Me Smile that starts like this:
‘Tog, toggle, goggle, wiggle / wriggle, giggle, gnu ‘ and Listening To – an onomatopoeic immersion in birdsong.

You might choose to celebrate Ash’s Birchday, or while reading Dear Key Workers pay tribute (along with the child collaborators) to all those who have contributed so much during the coronavirus pandemic ; or perhaps ponder upon the plight of those children who in 2018 were separated from their parents after so it was said, illegally entering the United States that Laura speaks so movingly of in How Long Until I Can See My Mum?

Whether your penchant is for science, space, nature or things literary you’ll find a poem here, many of them quirkily illustrated by Tania Rex.

Although a lover of Shakespeare I found myself spluttering with delight at Compliments of Shakespeare (inspired by the bard’s insults); and celebrating the joys of reading with the penultimate, rhyming Travel By Book, the final verse of which is: ‘I’ve met many people, I’ve made many friends, / and though I’ve felt sad when I came to the end / of the journey I’d made – I can make it again / with the words of a wonderful book.’

And, what we have here IS a wonderful book. (You can even use the QR code on the back cover on your smartphone for a free audiobook narrated by Laura herself – how fab is that?)