Emma Wright – illustratör

Which King had a mischievous pet monkey? Which ruthless Queen enjoyed toasting people to a crisp? Whose reign lasted only nine days? The Head That Wears A Crown is a captivating collection that features the Kings and Queens of the British Isles as you’ve never seen them before.Read Queen Victoria’s Twitter posts and young Elizabeth I’s letters to her father’s latest wife. Hear the muddy marching song of King Harold’s soldiers and learn which royal was Danish as a pastry, but nothing like as sweet! Intriguing, comical and accompanied by fascinating historical facts, these vibrant poems are a joy to read, bringing a long line of daring and devious monarchs to life.

ROAR! Now I’ve got your attention, can I interest you in a book of poems about dinosaurs? Though they went extinct 65 million years ago, dinosaurs are still everywhere. They’re on TV in The Land Before Time, in classrooms and museum collections, but it might still be hard to believe that dinosaurs walked here once. The poets in this anthology bring dinosaurs out of their display cases and into your home, and ask them politely to be careful with the carpet. Dragons of the Prime is an anthology for children which tackles the big questions about these larger-than-life creatures: what would a baby diplodocus pray for, and just how big is a dinosaur’s egg? Along the way it takes in fossil-finders – like the pioneering Mary Anning – T-Rex’s gym routine, and chickens who dream at night of their dino ancestors’ ‘dagger teeth’. There are poems about dinosaurs in their Jurassic heyday, poems about new discoveries and the latest scientific knowledge, and poems about the history of how humans have imagined these amazing beasts.

Tiny Moons is a collection of essays about food and belonging. Nina Mingya Powles journeys between Wellington, Kota Kinabalu and Shanghai, tracing the constants in her life: eating and cooking, and the dishes that have come to define her. Through childhood snacks, family feasts, Shanghai street food and student dinners, she attempts to find a way back towards her Chinese-Malaysian heritage.