We really couldn't be happier to see a fantastic new collection from one of our fave children's poets, the inestimably brilliant Colin West...

Living legend Colin West is back with an utterly superb compilation of poems to tickle your funny bone, make you giggle and also make you muse on this strange journey we call life...! It's "The Funniest Stuff" indeed!

Rib tickling rhymes? Hilarious cartoon drawings? It can only mean one thing, the return of a poetical legend!

Colin West, Author of "The Big Book of Nonsense (Vol 1-3)" with two awesome poetry books

We've giggled at his brilliant "Big Book of Nonsense" in its shiny new electronic form on iPad, and we've been entertained by his tweets. Ladies and gentlemen, for Children's Poetry Week we're very fortunate to have Colin West pop in to share with us a poetry-themed guest post. Over to you, Colin!

My Early Inspirations

Like most families in post war Britain, we didn't have many books in the house. Yet it hardly mattered to a boy fond of funny rhymes. I couldn't listen to the radio without hearing poetry in some form or other. Whether it was Lonnie Donegan enquiring about the properties of your chewing gum on the bedpost, or Alma Cogan speculating where the baby's dimple might be, novelty songs were everywhere.

Nor could I escape humorous rhymes at school. Playground chants educated me as to Popeye's toilet habits. Apparently he lived in a caravan and there was a hole in the middle where he did his piddle. And half past nine was the best time to hang your knickers on the line, I also learned.

In the classroom we were made to sing along to crackly broadcasts of folk songs twice weekly. Songs from all areas were covered, from Scotland to Somerset, Wales to the Wash, by way of Australia and the Deep South of America. Some were plaintively romantic, others plain nonsensical. One of my favourites bizarrely mixed "Rule Britannia" with a ditty about a mermaid at the bottom of the deep blue sea.

Meanwhile, TV was coming along apace. There was Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen. (Hardly high art, but the perfect theme for the programme's enthusiastic young audience.) Cy Grant sang topical calypsos almost nightly, Professor Stanley Unwin regularly popped up with his inspired gobbledygook and Spike Milligan read his silly verse on the Royal Variety Show.

Over on the newly formed commercial channel, advertising jingles rang in our ears: Murray mints, Murray mints, too good to hurry mints etc. In the streets, on the sides of Double Deckers, the slogan Drinkapintamilkaday shone out in multi-coloured lettering.

All this stuff was food for thought to a young boy acquiring an appetite for words.

As the 1960s dawned, a pre-Oliver Lionel Bart was writing witty words for the British rock'n'rollers. (Remember Tommy Steele's "Little White Bull"?) And even Frank Sinatra deigned to warble a daft ditty about some ant having trouble with a rubber tree plant.

Tom Lehrer - "Don't let the pigeon play the piano!"

C from Edward Lear's "The Letters of the Alphabet" (1880)

This week we're diving headlong into a fairly tricky subject. Children's Poetry is often (quite wrongly) overlooked because parents often assume that just because a book rhymes, it's poetry.

"Trampoline" and "Insides" from Book 2. Do not get these two confused

All round good egg and top tweeter, maker of mirth and rib-ticking rhymer extraordinaire Colin West popped up in our Twitter timeline to tell us that his "Big Book of Nonsense" series is now free on iTunes for your iPad.

Here are the links to all three "Big Book Of Nonsense" e-versions (UK Versions)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The above screenshot gives you a tiny idea of how great these are. If you fancy a full review of Part 1, here's what we wrote about it.

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