Monday 14 January 2013

The Big Book of Nonsense (Part 1) By Colin West (Apptoonz Ltd)














We have a real fondness for nonsense at Maybe Towers. I like a bit of Frank Muir or Spike Milligan, both brilliant buffoons in their own way but more than capable of stringing together the most amazing and funny rhymes. The Strolling Mum is a Dahl fan and loves his Revolting Rhymes. Charlotte is slowly being introduced to all of these, as well as quite a few rhymes that "Daddy makes up when he shouldn't, particularly one alternative version of "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's off to work we go" which is now banned from public broadcast.

So we were delighted when longtime Twitter pal and absolute gent Colin West told us about his Big Book of Nonsense - free on iPad or a very reasonable £1.92 on the Amazon Kindle Store.

It is indeed big, with a whole plethora of rib-tickling fun punctuated by Colin's brilliant and colourful cartoons. Think of a subject, and somewhere between the pages of The Big Book of Nonsense you'll find a rhyme to fit it. Charlotte demanded we went straight to the section entitled "Moments with Monsters" of course, and promptly nominated "The Glump" as her favourite.

Rhyming text helps children to remember and memorise words quite neatly, particularly if there's an air of subversion about anything (we were having a conversation on the merits of 'poo' and all the great things it rhymes with on Twitter last night - It's not high brow comedy but kids cannot get enough of it!)

Loved Colin's punchy, hilarious and brilliantly illustrated book. Go grab a copy and put a big old smile on your face!

Charlotte's best bit - "The Glump" and a great little poem about cats (poor Manx!)

Daddy's favourite bit - Well of course it had to be "The Alphabet of Horrible Habits"

Check out The Story Snug's review of Colin's brilliant book 'Have you seen the Crocodile?' here