Books make good pets and don't need going to the vet. You don't have to keep them on a lead or throw them a stick. They'll wag their words whenever you flick their dog-eared pages. Even howl an ancient tale for the inward-listening ear. Did you know that a book can take you anywhere? You only need to turn the pages of a story, and in a moment, you and your book could be crossing the waves in a pirate ship... or diving with mermaids... or even snoozing with a dragon. Books really DO make good pets! Why don't you peep inside this one, and take your mind on an adventure? This delightful original picture book poem is the perfect gift for anyone who delights in the magic of a good book. Agard's evocative, lyrical style is perfectly complemented with illustrations by Momoko Abe, whose colourful visuals add character, transporting the reader into an enchanting world of imagination.

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 unconscious with a courgette by his side. In other stories, an Anansi spider stows away on the Windrush, Cod and Chips are usurped by Chicken Tikka Marsala, and a white landscape gardener who admires Capability Brown has a mixed-race child, Cosmopolitan Brown, who is dispossessed by voices from history, including that of Martin Luther King. Surreal and playful, John Agard's stories reveal hidden truths that subtly change our view of who we are and where we come from.

A powerful picture book about communicating emotions and relating to fellow creatures, from an award-winning duo. Creature-of-No-Words lives a happy life on his own, but one day he gets a feeling like 'the chill touch of ice' and nothing can lift his sadness. Just then Creature-of-Words arrives and senses his despair. How can she help him communicate and become happy again? Age range 3 to 6 Of 'The Young Inferno' by the same author and artist: 'The words are from the extraordinary John Agard whose inventive verse is a constant wonder. Add the delights of artwork by Satoshi Kitamura and the whole book is inspired and tremendous; a total triumph.' School Librarian

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, Rhiannon, told with lyrical tenderness and thought-provoking wit, to Casanova the Philosopher, a sequence of sonnets in the voice of the legendary Venetian philosophically observing 18th-century English ways in a tongue-in-cheek memoir and travelogue. This is a diverse collection where the thought-provokingly mischievous, bawdy and elegiac rub shoulders alongside the sequence The Plants Are Staying Put - with the poet turning overnight lockdown gardener - as well as calypso poems, where the Guyana-born winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry puts on his hat as 'poetsonian', a term he coined in the 80s in tribute to the inventive lyrics of the calypsonian, a crucial strand of Agard's varied, innovative, and often satirical poetic output.

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. "Alternative Anthem" is a live album of poems from books published over three decades, including "John Agard Live!", a DVD of filmed highlights from recent performances made by filmmaker Pamela Robertson-Pearce. It includes poetry from "We Brits" in which the Guyanese-born word magician gives an outsider-insider view of British life in poems which both challenge and cherish our peculiar culture and hallowed institutions; "Weblines" that contains three powerful Caribbean myths of transformation: the steeldrum, the limbo dancer, and Anansi, the spider trickster god; and, "From the Devil's Pulpit" that is a Devil's eye view of the world, sweeping from Genesis across time; and, other collections including "Mangoes and Bullets" and "Lovelines for a Goat-Born Lady", as well his children's books, featuring some of Agard's best-known poems - "Listen Mr Oxford don", "Palm Tree King", "Half-Caste", and "English Girl Eats Her First Mango".

Excitement spreads like bush through the jungle. Earth-goddesses are planning a conference! From Australia to Antarctica, the Amazon to Africa, goddesses will debate the burning environmental issues of our times...and bushy-tailed, smooth-talking Coyote wants in on the action! Can this infamous trickster come up with a plan to infiltrate the conference and leave a lasting legacy for our planet? A rip-roaring poem by a master poet in celebration of Earth Day.

Shona has always loved words. She even has her very own strange word thesaurus! When her and her classmates learn that some languages are dying out, Miss Bates tasks them with becoming top-class word detectives, proving to themselves and their families that there are many beautiful languages still thriving, even within their own classroom. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant or dyslexic readers aged 7+

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. In The Coming of the Little Green Man, his eighth Bloodaxe collection, we enter a world of play and parable - in which the little green man stands for all pesky outsiders - in provocative poems charged with contemporary resonance. Which box should the little green man tick on the question of identity? Will the little green man survive as a minority of one in a multiracial London? What if the little green man volunteers to give blood to 21st-century humankind? Winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, he brings to bear his trademark trickster wit that bridges the metaphysical and the political, the comic and the poignant, the oral and the literary. His Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems (2009) was followed by Travel Light Travel Dark (2013) and Playing the Ghost of Maimonides (2016).

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 symphonic collection, Travel Light Travel Dark, Agard casts his unique spin on the intermingling strands of British history, and leads us into metaphysical and political waters. Cross-cultural connections are played out in a variety of voices and cadences. Prospero and Caliban have a cricket match encounter, recounted in calypso-inspired rhythms, and in the long poem, Water Music of a Different Kind, the incantatory orchestration of the Atlantic's middle passage becomes a moving counterpoint to Handel's Water Music. Travel Light Travel Dark brings a mythic dimension to the contemporary and opens with a meditation on the enigma of colour. Water often appears as a metaphoric riff within the fabric of the collection, as sugar cane tells its own story in 'Sugar Cane's Saga' and water speaks for itself in a witty debate with wine, inspired by the satirical tradition of the goliards, wandering clerics of the Middle Ages.

From above earth, from above sky,from below earth, from under water,come all you little personscome exactly as you are.Come little bird person, come little bee person, come little tree person - little persons from all over the world join together to celebrate the dance of life and love in this stunning poem from John Agard. Stunningly illustrated by Jessica Courtney-Tickle, this is a book that both little persons and big persons will treasure and pore over for a lifetime, and is a true poem of our time.

John Agard has been broadening the canvas of British poetry for the past 40 years with his mischievous, satirical fables. In "Clever Backbone", the Guyanese-born word magician plays havoc with biology and makes a monkey out of Darwinian evolution - on the occasion of the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his "Origin of Species". His "Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems" (with DVD) is published at the same time.

Shona likes most creatures in the world but for some reason she's terrified of bats, and so she's a bit concerned when her new teacher announces they're about to begin a bat project. But that's nothing to how she feels when a colony of the pesky flappers turn up in her own attic! Luckily Miss Bates turns out to be a bat expert and she's soon on the case. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers aged 7+

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 it again - exploring rhythmic patterns; Citizenship: Living in a diverse world

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. 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 world, no less perplexed, and trailed by the figure of the Jester, whose wise fool musings shadow Maimonides' discourses on a range of subjects from sectarian fanaticism to God's incorporeal lack of taste buds. In Playing the Ghost of Maimonides, the rabbinical, the parabolical, the nonsensical, are symphonically interwoven in a thought-provoking romp of metaphysical shapeshifting that resonates with the current climate of extremism.

Build your child's reading confidence at home with books at the right level 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 coaster for Owl on pages 30-31 help children to discuss the different emotions addressed in the story. Curriculum links: Geography: Passport to the world; Citizenship: Living in a diverse world; ICT: Combining text and graphics. This book has been quizzed for Accelerated Reader.

The father of performance poetry, John Agard, brings you a collection of riotously funny poems. Follow that Word is a celebration of imagination and demonstrates the true diversity of language. A dazzling collection of over sixty poems, Follow That Word delivers John Agard's musings on people and places from the modern and historical world, this wonderful collection that can be rediscovered over and over again. With gorgeous black-and-white illustrations from Momoko Abe, Follow That Word takes you on a thought-provoking journey into the wonderful world of words, and this collection belongs on every bookshelf. 'It's been around from Creation dawn, And it only takes two to catch on, Try it people, and you'll soon see, This is a dance that can set you free, It's called the dance of diversity.' Reviews for Half-caste, and Other Poems: 'Rollicking Caribbean-flavored rhythms combined with serious matters such as racism define poet extraordinaire, Agard.' - Voya A performance poet, Agard uses his rhyme, repetition and refrains that make his work sing...Skilful use of humour to get his serious points across. - The Book Horn Inc

From water-vapour to robots and outer-space to water, this highly original collection from John Agard, winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, explores everything exciting about science. Delighting in the wonder and oddities physics, biology and chemistry have to offer, these poems will bring out the scientist in you!

From the mysterious power of the decimal point to the oddity of odd numbers, fun and wonder are the essence of these remarkable poems. The winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry takes us through the delight and silliness maths has to offer. Subjects range from the title poem in which Einstein's number-loving parents persuade her of the fun they have with maths, to poems about the magic number nine, the power of the decimal point, and the ancient Inca counting device the Quipo.

A wonderful new anthology of poems by winner of the Queens Medal and the Eleanor Farjeon Award, 2016

Do triangles

ever get into a tangle

when their sides meet their angles?

A wonderful new children's poetry collection, from a celebrated, award-winning poet. From nature and science to identity, prepare to be transported on a journey through past and present. This collection from John Agard, winner of the Queens Medal and the Eleanor Farjeon Award, explores the wonders of the world - inviting your child to ponder life's questions with lots of fun along the way!

Books make good pets and don't need going to the vet.
You don't have to keep them on a lead or throw them a stick.
They'll wag their words whenever you flick their dog-eared pages.
Even howl an ancient tale for the inward-listening ear.

Did you know that a book can take you anywhere? You only need to turn the pages of a story, and in a moment, you and your book could be crossing the waves in a pirate ship... or diving with mermaids... or even snoozing with a dragon.

Books really DO make good pets! Why don't you peep inside this one, and take your mind on an adventure?

This delightful original picture book poem is the perfect gift for anyone who delights in the magic of a good book. Agard's evocative, lyrical style is perfectly complemented with illustrations by Momoko Abe, whose colourful visuals add character, transporting the reader into an enchanting world of imagination.

One of the the UK's top performance poets explores issues of race and identity with a mixture of new poems and old favourites for teenagers. 'Half-Caste' is one of the poems on the AQA GCSE English syllabus and thus studied by every student following this major syllabus. As a consequence it and its author are among the best-known in secondary schools. John Agard is also very active touring England with GCSE POETRY LIVE, day-long events of poetry discussion and performance reaching some 80,000 students each year. HALF-CASTE AND OTHER POEMS is aimed directly at the audience for GCSE POETRY LIVE. Built around this seminal poem, it is a mixture of old and new poems that address core issues and experiences for young people. Race and cultural identity is a primary theme and shapes the book. But although he includes poems such as 'Checking Out Me History' about the way the black perspective on history has been ignored, John is just as interested in celebrating the richness of human diversity in poems full of wit, compassion and hope. There are poems about violence, the environment, relationships, politics and grief, alongside