The Star Whale
Age 6+
Poetry
Two superlative talents combine in a feast of verbal and visual imagery: forty brilliant poems celebrating the living world with love and laughter.
Always inventive, with surprises and fresh perceptions on every page, these poems and pictures will captivate young readers. The range is astonishing, from the cosmic qualities of the Star Whale to the tiny but intense identities of a butterfly or a moth. The boundaries of time and space retreat in poems like 'Way back in the Old Cretaceous'. Raw realities are faced in the "tazzies" feast and fighting in 'A Night out in Tasmania'. There is magical vision in 'The Song of the Melting Tiger' and rude hilarity in 'Walking the Hippo'. From the Titanosaurus to the bat, the butterfly and the moth, trees and bees, toucans and turkeys, the tone move effortlessly from comic to lyrical or reflective.
Creators
Nicola Davies is a much-admired author of children's books. With a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, she joined the BBC's Natural History unit as a researcher and then presenter. As a writer and poet, she has always focused on humanity's relationship with the animal world and has organised and joined in many campaigns for animal welfare.
Petr Horacek was born in Prague and studied at the Academy of Fine Art. After graduating in 1994, he moved to live in England. His first two picture books were published in 2001, winning the 'Books for Children' Newcomer award. Since then he has won a string of other international prizes and distinctions, including shortlisting for the Independent Booksellers Week book award in 2016 for The Mouse Who Reached the Sky; the Best Everyday Book for One-year Olds in the Myra Robertson Baby Book of the Year awards for Choo Choo; 'Parents' Best Book of the Year 2013 for Animal Opposites; shortlisting for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2012 for Puffin Peter; and Picture Book of the Year 2006 for the Dutch edition of A New House for Mouse. Petr tutors aspiring illustrators as well as holding workshops for children at literary festivals, bookshops and schools. He lives in Worcestershire, UK.
