Sticky Ends by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
| Sticky Ends by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross | |
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| Category: Children's Rhymes and Verse | |
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Reviewer: Ruth Ng
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| Summary: A book of disgusting and gruesome rhymes. I didn't think it was fantastic, but there are one or two gems in there and some great illustrations. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 80 | Date: September 2011 |
| Publisher: Andersen | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1849392501 | |
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This is a book of funny rhymes and verses in which rather disgusting and gruesome things happen to the characters involved, with each one getting their comeuppance. Tony Ross obviously had a wonderful time illustrating the book with everything from noses, dripping with blood as they're pinched off right through to Father Christmas using the toilet...
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It is the dream team of Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross working on it after all. I felt though that some of the rhymes just felt a bit flat at times. The book starts with the reliable subject of school dinners and is suitably disgusting as we find eyeballs and frogs and even other children within the various meals each day. That's followed though by a rather dull one about a worm which only has the gruesome highlight of his tail being bitten off. Others feel slow too, with Icy Clare going on for 6 pages and then Spec-less Rex who I felt, quite frankly, deserved a smacked bottom for making his mum buy him the most expensive designer glasses he could find and then throwing them in the bin!
One of the poems is about a girl called Felicity Finch who was prone to pinch which I think some children would probably find fun but it will make the grown ups groan or cringe with all the made up rhymes ('nursery' rhymes with 'worsery', 'thumbery' rhymes with 'bummery'...) I'm not a fan of those made up words, but I did like the fact that through the book the poems all have different structures and rhythms.
There are some poems which are wonderful, such as Vince the Mince which is quite my favourite poem out of the whole book and almost made me push this up to a four star review. Vince the Mince is the butcher's dog, he's mean, he's hard, he's.....vegetarian! You need to find the book just to read that rhyme! We also liked My Uncle's Wedding which is just very silly and ridiculous and the pictures made my daughter and I laugh out loud!
The illustrations are great, and there's plenty of gross things going on to delight children who like vomiting and excessively snotty sneezes! It wouldn't be my first choice for poetry, but I imagine it would be a good way to get some disgusterous little boys reading poems!
I'd certainly recommend taking a look at a copy in the library, but this is one that I'd rather borrow than buy and you'd perhaps only want to buy your own copy of if it particularly tickled your child's funny bone. There are a few really funny poems, but I don't feel it's worth buying the book just for those.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
Further reading suggestion: You might also like to take a look at There's An Alien In The Classroom by Gervase Phinn.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Sticky Ends by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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