Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice
A riotous celebration of words and a modern take on cautionary tales – featuring advice on parrots, gravy, mathematics, castles (bouncy), spiders, vegetables (various), breakfast, cakes, and removing ducks from soup.
Advice comes in many shapes.
Poems come in many shapes.
And so, it follows, poems of advice come in many shapes too.
Sometimes they look you in the eye and say, ‘Do this! Don’t do that!’
Sometimes they sidle up beside you and whisper, ‘Have you ever thought about … ?’
Not everything in this book is necessarily good advice, and not all of it is sensible advice. (But if you take the bad or un-sensible advice and don’t follow it, then it may become useful advice in its own way.)
Filled with colour illustrations and packed with silly rhymes, witty wordplay and thought-provoking story poems, this collection will delight children of all ages.
A.F. Harrold is an English poet who writes and performs for adults and children. He spends his time showing off onstage, writing poems and books, and stroking his beard (it helps churn the ideas). He is the author of The Song from Somewhere Else (illustrated by Levi Pinfold), the Fizzlebert Stump series, and the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal longlisted The Imaginary (illustrated by Emily Gravett). He lives in Reading with a stand-up comedian and two cats.
Mini Grey studied sequential design at Brighton University before launching her first picture book, Egg Drop, in 2002. Trained in puppet making, set design, welding and carpentry, Mini’s style has an unconventional flare and instantly recognizable quirkiness. Mini has now published thirteen picture books. Amongst numerous nominations and prizes, Mini has won the Smarties Book Award and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for The Adventures of the Dish & Spoon.