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Jeanne Willis is an award-winning children's author and scriptwriter. She had her first picture book published by Andersen Press at the age of 21, and since then she has won the Silver Medal Smarties Prize (Tadpole's Promise), the Nasen Special Needs Award (Susan Laughs), the Sheffield Children's Book Award (Who’s in The Loo) and the Red House Children's Book Award (Bottoms Up). Jeanne has also worked on scripts for TV, including Polly Pocket and The Slow Norris, and a pilot TV series for Dr Xargle. She lives in North London with her husband.
Photo credit: Justine Stoddart
March 2021 Book of the Month | Jeanne Willis is one of our funniest writers for children, but she can do poignancy and tenderness with equal skill. Hom is the story of a shipwreck. A young boy is washed up on a desert island and there discovers Hom, a peace-loving hairy little creature, the last of his kind. The two become best of friends, playing and laughing together; after all, as the boy says, ‘We’re much more alike than different.’ When the chance of escape from the island comes, the boy decides not to take it, in case the arrival of bigger people puts Hom into danger. It’s a touching story of friendship, family and the importance of kindness, to others but to our planet too. Adults will realise that Hom is short for Hominid, his presence a reminder of our past, our connections to the natural world, and its fragility. Illustrator Paddy Donnelly creates a wonderfully lush and vibrant desert island, and his characters are equally warm and alive.
February 2021 Book of the Month | Old Macdonald had a phone, e-i-e-i-o. Very useful it is too, helping him get organised and run the farm. But then he drops it in the lake, and when ordering a replacement, accidentally buys 100. The animals all take one, and chaos ensues. They are all so busy on their phones – here a tweet, there a chat – that nothing gets done and Old Macdonald has no milk, or eggs to sell. Fortunately, he finds a solution, and everyone lives happily – a chat-chat here, and a selfie there, but not all day – that seems fair! It’s another clever, very funny cautionary tale for our online times from the brilliant duo of Willis and Ross. The rhymes make it bliss to read aloud, and the illustrations are a spritely delight. Funny, clever and we can all learn from it – what more could you ask? Smiley face. Look out too for the other books in this fabulous series, Chicken Clicking, Troll Stinks and #Goldilocks.
Longlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2020 | | Jeanne Willis is a latter-day Hilaire Belloc creating cautionary tales for modern youth that are both hilarious and full of sensible advice. Desperate to win more ‘likes’ for her posts, Goldilocks is driven to find ever more daring activities to share, which is why she takes a selfie breaking in to the bears’ cottage, and - #pipinghot! – one of her eating their porridge. It all ends in tears of course, and community service, but what’s worse for Goldilocks is that her posts are there forever, depicting her as a horrid porridge thief and leading to the moral: ‘So please, think twice before you send!’ Tony Ross’s illustrations, sharp and full of life and wit, are the perfect complement to the rhyme. Brilliance all round!
A funny story told in gentle rhyme from multi-award winner Jeanne Willis about a little girl who finds a baby Martian – and her hilarious struggles to get him to go to the loo in the right place! Almost every receptacle you can imagine is explored – kitchen bin, cowboy hat, bird bath to name but a few – with varying degrees of success and failure, but a great deal of fun! There’s even a Toilet Song to help get things in the right order. With some laughter causing disasters before final success this is a lovely way to underscore the message about Toilet Training for Reception children who may be struggling. Hrefna Bragadottir was longlisted for the Klaus Flugge Prize – and you can really appreciate why with her softly coloured action-packed illustrations. This is a fun read for all very young children on an important life lesson!
Longlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2020 | | Jeanne Willis is a latter-day Hilaire Belloc creating cautionary tales for modern youth that are both hilarious and full of sensible advice. Desperate to win more ‘likes’ for her posts, Goldilocks is driven to find ever more daring activities to share, which is why she takes a selfie breaking in to the bears’ cottage, and - #pipinghot! – one of her eating their porridge. It all ends in tears of course, and community service, but what’s worse for Goldilocks is that her posts are there forever, depicting her as a horrid porridge thief and leading to the moral: ‘So please, think twice before you send!’ Tony Ross’s illustrations, sharp and full of life and wit, are the perfect complement to the rhyme. Brilliance all round!
Shortlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2019 | A Julia Eccleshare Pick of the Month May 2019 | Finding out that everyone is individual.
How many uses can there be for a book? Humour and wit in every page make this a fun read with an important message.
There’s an important life lesson tucked into the pages of this action-packed and very funny picture book. Blue Monster’s parents give him pretty much everything he wants, but nothing makes him happy, at least not for long. He gets bored so quickly that what is entertaining in the morning just makes him bored and grumpy by the afternoon. As his search for satisfaction leads him into bigger adventures and more absurd situations he ends up on a tropical island but in the pitch dark because he’s swallowed the sun. Children will understand how he feels and recognise just what he needs to be happy. Author and illustrator have equal fun with this story and it’s very entertaining with lots for parent and child to point out and discuss. ~ Andrea Reece
It’s hard to know what will make children laugh most in this tale of a short-sighted T-Rex – will it be the description of him going out in his sister’s knickers and his granny’s vest, or the bit where he accidentally washes his face in the toilet? Jeanne Willis’s rhyming text is typically boisterous, and Tony Ross manages to make the hapless T-Rex both ridiculous and imposing. It finishes with the kind of shock-ending that is this pair’s speciality, one which after a moment’s stunned silence will have children roaring with laughter again. ~ Andrea Reece
A spin off from Paul and Henrietta Stickland’s much-loved Dinosaur Roar, this is a real treat for young palaeontologists. A simple story about a diplodocus called Dinosaur Munch, and how much he likes to eat, slips in all sorts of information about dinosaurs and their world. The pictures, while they portray the dinosaurs almost as cartoon characters, are accurate and also full of information. In the course of his browsing Dinosaur Munch meets fellow dinosaurs including a stegosaurus Dinosaur Whack, and a Parasaurolophus called Dinosaur Honk. The story is written by the inimitable Jeanne Willis, who else could incorporate the word parasaurolophus into a picture book rhyme without missing a beat? There’s a nice punchline to make children laugh, and it finishes with a page of interesting Diplodocus facts. ~ Andrea Reece
‘Deep in the rainforest, far from the swamp, lived a grumpy Triceratops, Dinosaur Stomp’. So begins this immensely appealing bit of dinosaur faction (a mix of fact and fiction). Dinosaur Stomp is very grumpy indeed so when he gets a chip of stone in his eye from a rock that Ankylosaurus, Dinosaur Bash, is reducing to rubble, he has no-one to turn to. Fortunately, Dinosaur Squeak, a brave little Composygnathus, comes to his rescue. It’s a funny, entertaining story but is also packed with information about dinosaurs and their world. The illustrations, while TV cartoon in feel, still give a very realistic impression of what dinosaurs looked like with their scaly, brightly coloured skin. It concludes with a page of interesting Triceratops facts. ~ Andrea Reece The World of Dinosaur Roar! is a brand new collectable series of books created by Peter Curtis and produced in association with the Natural History Museum in London.
I'm in Charge! delivers a useful life lesson with humour and style. He may be only little, but this baby rhino knows just how to throw his weight around, bossing all the other animals in ways that may be horribly familiar to parents of toddlers. It takes a stampede of beefy wildebeest to teach him that he’s not really in charge. The story is told with typical wit and insight by the incomparable Jeanne Willis in a rhyming text that is sheer pleasure to read aloud, while Jarvis creates glorious scenes depicting little rhino’s encounters with his fellow wild animals in the glowing, richly saturated colours of his illustrations. ~ Andrea Reece The Editor at Nosy Crow says “A laugh-out-loud book about a catastrophically cantankerous toddler rhino – what’s not to love? It may be set in the savannah, but this is brilliantly-observed preschool behaviour.”
