World Book Day Poetry Book 2005

From John Agard and Julia Donaldson to Nikita Gill, Brian Bilston and Carol Ann Duffy, The Big Amazing Poetry Book is a brilliant, accessible introduction to poetry and to fifty-two fantastic poets. Introduced by Roger McGough, the book features the illustrations of former Children's Laureate and beloved author of the Goth Girl and Ottoline series, Chris Riddell. A warm, funny collection, this book is packed with many different styles of poetry – ballads, riddles, tongue-twisters, shape poems, haikus, sonnets and raps – about seasons, festivals, animals, birds, love, war, food, fish and football and much more. Each poet is showcased with seven of their poems alongside a biography to give exciting, engaging context to their work – plus a stunning line artwork on every page. A must have for any young readers, The Big Amazing Poetry Book primarily features work from twentieth and twenty-first century poets. Included are John Agard, Brian Bilston, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Coelho, Julia Donaldson, Carol Ann Duffy, Nikita Gill, Jackie Kay, Roger McGough – and many more. '[A] warm, funny and imaginative celebration of verse, and the ideal introduction to a mix of diverse poets' – Lancashire Post

An explanation of the unique role of the book and book collecting in South Africa due to the apartheid This book explores the power of print and the politics of the book in South Africa from a range of disciplinary perspectives- historical, bibliographic, literary-critical, sociological, and cultural studies. The essays collected here, by leading international scholars, address a range of topics as varied as: the role of print cultures in contests over the nature of the colonial public sphere in the nineteenth century; orthography; iimbongi, orature and the canon; book- collecting and libraries; print and transnationalism; Indian Ocean cosmopolitanisms; books in war; how the fates of South African texts, locally and globally, have been affected by their material instantiations; photocomics and other ephemera; censorship, during and after apartheid; books about art and books as art; local academic publishing; and the challenge of 'book history' for literary and cultural criticism in contemporary South Africa.

Winner of the UKLA Author Award 2009:UKLA 'Lockwood has written a useful, supportive book which will help teachers and librarians...He describes the background and summarises the research and then proposes thoroughly practical programmes' - Carousel 'Michael Lockwood has produced an excellent, practical overview and analysis of what works in the primary school to promote reading for pleasure....Lockwood's work is grounded and valuable to those who need it most - teachers in the classroom working hard to engender a love of reading' - English Drama Media 'This book is first class. It puts the matter very clearly and succinctly, and presents a great deal of evidence to support the argument that pleasure is not a frivolous extra, but the very heart and essence of what reading is about. It also gives readers plenty of ideas for carrying the principle into the classroom, and for justifying it...This is an excellent piece of work, which I hope will find a place on every staffroom bookshelf.' - Philip Pullman English primary school children are less likely to read for pleasure than their counterparts in many other countries. This practical and focused book discusses the background to this situation and looks at how government initiatives have tried to address it. Drawing on the author's own research project in order to identify good practice in promoting reading for enjoyment, the book presents specific activities which teachers can use to develop their own whole school and classroom practice, enabling them to put the fun back into reading. Each chapter features case-study material and provides examples of planning from schools that have successfully created thriving reading cultures through schemes such as reading assemblies, book clubs, library loyalty cards, school book evenings and quizzes. There is also an extensive, annotated list of print and internet-based resources. Topics covered include: - Becoming a reading for pleasure school - Promoting a love of reading in the early years - Developing reading enjoyment in the later primary years - Getting boys reading Promoting Reading for Pleasure in the Primary School is written for all those involved in education who would like to see as many children as possible develop a love of reading. It will be particularly relevant for primary teachers, teaching assistants, trainee teachers, advisers and consultants, as well as teacher educators and researchers.

Provides up-to-date profiles on the careers of leading and emerging poets.

Fully revamped and expanded, this second edition offers a complete introduction to the art and craft of writing poetry. Mapping out 38 foundational elements of poetry including image, line, point of view, metaphor, movement, and music, authors Amorak Huey and W. Todd Kaneko use these elements as starting points for discussion questions and writing prompts. The book guides readers through a range of poetic modes and styles such as: o Elegies and Odes o Found poems o Aubades and Nocturnes o Documentary and Protest poems o Ars Poetica o Lyric and Narrative poems o Personas and Portraits With a focus on contemporary poems, the anthology features a truly diverse and global line-up of poets and poems to illustrate the elements and craft discussed in the book. Featuring all-new chapters on traditional poetic forms, prosody, writing poems that engage the current moment, and the value and ethics of imitation, this is the ultimate companion to studying and practicing the craft of poetry.

No ordinary collection of tales, this anthology was the result of extensive research that led Shah to conclude that there is a certain basic fund of human fictions which recur again and again throughout the world and never seem to lose their compelling attraction. This special paperback version of World Tales concentrates on the essentials, the text of the stories, and omits the illustrations which were part of a previous edition.

This book, drawn from the award-winning online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, tells the story of our recent past through the lives of those who shaped national life.

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry offers thirty-eight chapters of ground breaking research that form a collaborative guide to the many groupings and movements, the locations and styles, as well as concerns (aesthetic, political, cultural and ethical) that have helped shape contemporary poetry in Britain and Ireland. The book's introduction offers an anthropological participant-observer approach to its variously conflicted subjects, while exploring the limits and openness of the contemporary as a shifting and never wholly knowable category. The five ensuing sections explore: a history of the period's poetic movements; its engagement with form, technique, and the other arts; its association with particular locations and places; its connection with, and difference from, poetry in other parts of the world; and its circling around such ethical issues as whether poetry can perform actions in the world, can atone, redress, or repair, and how its significance is inseparable from acts of evaluation in both poets and readers. Though the book is not structured to feature chapters on authors thought to be canonical, on the principle that contemporary writers are by definition not yet canonical, the volume contains commentary on many prominent poets, as well as finding space for its contributors' enthusiasms for numerous less familiar figures. It has been organized to be read from cover to cover as an ever deepening exploration of a complex field, to be read in one or more of its five thematically structured sections, or indeed to be read by picking out single chapters or discussions of poets that particularly interest its individual readers.