New Children's Books

I am very excited to have recently signed up with a new publisher, Bloomsbury (famous for the Harry Potter series) to write three new children's books. Two of these will appear in 2014 with the third to follow in 2015 and I am very excited about them.

The books are fun, non-fiction titles full of humour, information and things to do. The first one, due to be published in May is The Silly Book of Side-Splitting Stuff. This is a collection of lists, facts, jokes and funny true stories all about silly people, silly inventions, silly animals, silly events, silly food and much, much more. It's an information book with a twist - full of amazing, strange things, written in short chunks with cartoons and amusing illustrations.

This book was great fun to write and I so enjoyed researching facts about some of the silliest people from history and nutty people from the present. There's a section on silly things that have happened in sport, as well as silly names, films, TV, places, words and poems. You will not believe some of the stupid things that have been said and done - nearly all by adults...

Here is a bit of a flavour of the content:

From Silly Animals:

Nonsensical names

Some animals’ names are silly because they are confusing. Have a look at these and you’ll see what I mean:

Starfish                               It’s not a fish
Horny toad                         It’s a lizard, not a toad
Electric eel                         It’s not an eel but a knifefish
Mountain goat                  Although it does live on mountains it’s not a goat
Guinea pig                          They’re not from Guinea and they’re not pigs
Flying lemur                      It’s not a lemur and it can’t fly (OK, it can glide a bit)
Black rhino                         It’s not black

White rhino                       It’s not white


From Silly Names:

Wacky band names

Back in the 1950s pop groups had sensible names like The Andrews Sisters but the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll changed all that and things began to get a little bit silly in the Sixties with bands like The Kinks, Herman’s Hermits and The Grateful Dead. By the 1970s, nutty names for groups were quite normal and today there are hundreds of bands with outrageous names. Here are some good ones, old and new:
·         Bonzo Dog’s Doo Dah Band
·         Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
·         Half-man Half-biscuit
·         Bowling for Soup
·         Angry Salad
·         Big White Undies
·         Crispy Ambulance
·         Hitler Stole My Potato
·         Planet of Pants
·         Zombies Under Stress


From Silly Jokes:

Transport puns

A pun is a ‘funny’ wordplay using a word or phrase that has a double meaning. Most puns (especially dads’ puns) are AWFUL. But these are really good!

A man crashed his expensive car into a tree and found out how the Mercedes bends.
All the forms of motor racing had a competition to see which was the fastest and Formula won.
Prince Harry tried a Fiat but fancied something a little more Porsche.
Crossing the Atlantic on a Jumbo Jet is not plane sailing.
Hearse racing is dead good.
I couldn't work out how to fasten my seatbelt. Then it clicked.
The Queen bought a new limo but she had nothing to chauffeur it.
Watch out for whales – they eat fish and ships.
I went on a long bike ride and got wheely tyred.
Our school boarded the train before anyone else and took the best seats: first class idea.

I'll post more about the second book soon. Meanwhile you can pre-order The Silly Book of Side-Splitting Stuff here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Silly-Book-Side-Splitting-Stuff/dp/1408850796

It's not a goat.