Dear friends, Welcome to Word Play, the book that celebrates words and play! Inside these pages you’ll find stories and poems about child detectives, about not liking poetry, stories about volcanoes, bad moods and bananas and a guest appearance by a pigeon called Dave. All of these are extracts from books, written by authors, poets and also a gardener! We have put them together to give you a taste of all the different types of stories and styles of writing that are out there. They are here to inspire you to read more, write more and enjoy plenty of hours of play with words. If you like them that much, you might want to read the full book they belong to, which you can get from a library near you. But wait...that’s not all! We have crammed this book with epic stories AND amazing tips on how to feed your imagination and how to bring your own ideas to life. We hope these will inspire you to become the Greatest Authors the world has ever seen! So grab your pencils and let’s get going...
Word Play was created by How Brave is the Wren, the children’s caravan-bookshop, as part of the Word Play festival, taking place between the 7th - 12th June 2021 in Birmingham. The festival aims to encourage a love of reading, storytelling and writing. It was made in collaboration with a host of brilliant authors, illustrators and publishers whose details you can find on the final page of this book. Word Play is available to download as a PDF from www.howbraveisthewren.com It was compiled & designed by Studio Anorak, publishers of Happy Mags for Kids Anorak and DOT. Illustrations and cover by Ben Javens. www.anorakmagazine.com www.benjavens.co.uk This book was made with the generous help of the Arts Council. For any questions, please email Jenny at hello@howbraveisthewren.com Follow us on our social media: @how_brave_is_the_wren
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Reproduction of material is strictly prohibited without prior written permission. All rights reserved.
by Joshua Seigal
I don’t like similes. Every time I try to think of one my brain feels like a vast, empty desert; my eyes feel like raisins floating in an ocean; my fingers feel like sweaty sausages. I don’t like metaphors. Whenever I attempt them a hammer starts beating in my chest; lava starts running through my veins; zombies have a fight in my stomach. I don’t like alliteration. We learnt about it in school but it’s seriously, stupendously silly; definitely drastically difficult; terribly, troublingly tricky. I don’t like onomatopoeia. I wish I could blow it up with a ZAP! and a BANG! and a CRASH!; a BOOM! and a CLANG! and a POW!; a CLASH! and a BAM! and a THUD! And I don’t like repetition I don’t like repetition I don’t like repetition… Text © Joshua Seigal
“I’m fond of this poem for several reasons. Firstly, much of my poetry rhymes, but this piece doesn’t, so it feels a bit special and unique. Secondly, this poem is essentially one big joke, and I like jokes. And thirdly, I like to use this poem as a kind of mini lesson, to teach people all about metaphors, similes, alliteration, onomatopoeia and repetition. Why not have a go at writing your own version of this poem? You can expla in, for example, why you don’t like similes, and use lots of similes in your explanation! You can even use lots of techniques that I myself did n’t mention, such as assonance, idioms, and eve n rhyme! Have fun!
Extract from Write Your Own Funny Stories by James Campbell and Rob Jones. Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. Text © James Campbell, Artwork © Rob Jones
Follow gardener and TV presenter Alys Fowler on a tour around her greenhouse to find out all about leaves.
eaves come in all shapes, sizes and textures. Some are as big as an umbrella, some are hairy, some are furry, some are waxy, some have spines, some sting and some smell delicious! There are even some leaves which contain powerful medicines that can help against pain and others that are full of poison.
When a plant is a baby seedling it has baby leaves. Eventually the plant has to lose these so the adult leaves can grow.
The shape of a leaf often tells you lots about where the plant comes from. Blue or grey leaves are found on plants that live in very bright sunny places – the blue-grey reflects the strong sunlight, a bit like a plant deciding to wear sunglasses. Plump and leathery leaves like that of a cactus or succulent mean that the plant lives in a place with very little water. The leaves are acting like water bottles, storing up water for when the plant is thirsty.
Leaves are the powerhouse of the plant. They are just like solar panels: they take energy from the sun and convert it into food for the plant to grow. While roots take up water, leaves take in carbon dioxide (that’s the stuff you breathe out). The leaves mix the water and the carbon dioxide and then use their solar panels to turn this into sugar and oxygen. This is called . Plants use the sugars to grow, and you use the oxygen to breathe. It’s as if every time you breathe in, a plant breathes out and vice versa.
Did you know that leaves can move? The Venus flytrap shuts its leaves tight to trap flies so it can gobble them up! The prayer plant folds its leaves up every night before it goes to sleep and then in the morning waves them out again to catch the sun’s rays.
A cactus's spines are actually its leaves. The cactus stores all its water in its stem and develops sharp spines to protect this supply from thirsty creatures in the desert that want to steal it! Leaves come in all sorts of colours: gold, orange, pink, purple, red and, of course, many shades of green. The green colour in leaves is called chlorophyll. It’s like a magical paint that can make its own food and energy.
Extract from Grow, Forage and Make written by by Alys Fowler and illustrated by Heidi Griffiths. Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
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AVOCADO BED BEETROOT BUD CACTUS FLOWER FORAGE GARDEN
GRASS GREEN GREENHOUSE GROW HERBS LEAVES PHOTOSYNTHESIS
NEEDLES PLANTS POT SEEDS STALK TREE WATER WILD
Answers: Flower, Plants, Snail, Cabbag, Gras, Tulip, Gardener, Pond, Tree, Rose
Can you unscramble these odd words to reveal things you may find in a garden?
Author Ally shares with us her top five writing tips so you can be an amazing writer like her! Wondering where to start? It might help to think about the sort of stories you enjoy reading. Funny ones? Mystery-adventures? Stories set in the past? They might be the sort of stories you’d enjoy writing too. Or why not shake things up and write something completely different instead! Give your hero or heroine a good, strong name: one that tells you something about their character. In my wartime adventure The Buried Crown, I named my London evacuee hero George Penny. George, after my own dad who was an evacuee during the war. Plus it was the name of the king – George VI – too. And Penny because George is bright and sparky – a bit like a brand new penny.
If you’re thinking of setting your story in the past, make sure you do your research first. Find out how people lived what clothes they wore; what they ate; how they travelled and whether or not they could read or write. Also, what sort of things did they believe in? What did they find funny? And what were they scared of? If you get these things right, you’ll be well on your way to creating a compelling story that readers will find believable and want to lose themselves in.
Also, give your main character a heart’s desire. Something that will power them through the story and keep them going when things get tough. For example, in my latest book, The Queen’s Fool, the heart’s desire of my heroine, Cat Sparrow, is to save her beloved sister, Meg, from the mysterious man on the big black horse who kidnaps her in the opening chapter.
Most of all, don’t give up. Writing a story can be fun, but it’s hard work too. I do lots of rewriting before a book is finished and ready to meet its readers. In fact, I rewrote my first published story, Black Powder – set at the time of the infamous Gunpowder Plot – seven times! But if you have what I call the 3 ‘Ps’ – passion, patience and perseverance – you are already half way there.
Five top writing tips from Ally Sherrick, author of THE QUEEN’S FOOL, published by Chicken House
by Kate Wakeling Bad Moods wear weird shoes. Bad Moods wear weird shoes covered in unexpected fleecy fluff that mean Bad Moods can creep up on you like spiders or tigers or a daddy longlegs with silent stilts. Bad Moods wear weird shoes that mean Bad Moods can creep up on you and then, when you’re alone and a Bad Mood has slunk into that curl of muscle and bone that is your EARHOLE, the Bad Mood will tear off its weird shoes and underneath is wearing ENORMOUS CLOD-HOPPERS so it can bang around even though only you can hear it (you hope). Bad Moods gobble grins for breakfast then spit them out as mangled toads. Bad Moods smell like bat droppings, old eggs and damp, cross dogs. Bad Moods can’t finish even their own sentences because— Bad Moods are just so— Bad Moods have you in their— Bad Moods won’t— Bad Moods wear weird shoes because that is what Bad Moods do.
What does a bad mood look like? Draw it here please.
Extract from Moon Juice by Kate Wakeling (The Emma Press, 2016), illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa, which won the CLiPPA in 2017. Kate’s second collection of poems for children, Cloud Soup, is forthcoming with The Emma Press in June 2021.
You want to write a story? Great! A dice is just the thing you need then!
You will need an A4 piece of paper, some glue, scissors, colouring pens or pencils and buckets of imagination.
Draw on a piece of paper the template for the dice, like this one. Tip: ensure all the squares are the same size.
Draw something fun on each square. You could have a couple of settings, objects and characters.
Fold along the lines and glue the flaps together. You should end up with a cube shape.
Ta-da! You are now ready to write a story. Throw the dice twice and use the objects or settings or characters featured on the side it lands on to create your very own story.
This story needs telling and it needs two of you to complete it! First, write in the first box what happened “Once upon a time”, then cover this opening chapter with a piece of paper.
Now pass it to a friend/family member for them to finish the story in the second box. Once that’s done, read the whole story out for mega laughs.
book on
How to Deal with Bad Cats and Keep (most of) Your Feathers by Dave Pigeon
Extract from “Dave Pigeon” the first book in the Dave Pigeon series. Typed by Skipper Pigeon on Swapna Haddow’s old typewriter from the shed. Doodles by Honorary pigeon Sheena Dempsey. Published by Faber & Faber
What are they saying?
Please write what best friends Dave & Skipper are chatting about.
Extract from Jess Butterworth’s latest book Into The Volcano. Text by Jess Butterworth Artwork by Rob Biddulph Published by Hachette Children’s Group
I can’t believe that after all this time I’m finally going to make it to the rainbow pool. I pull a card from the deck and shine the torch on the face of it. The Eight of Hearts. It’s a good omen. Adrenaline shoots around my body. I don’t feel tired AT ALL. I lead Vivi down to the path and to the road, retracing the route we drove earlier. I keep looking back at the tents, silhouetted in the darkness. But there’s no shine of flashlights, no call for us. My eyes adjust to the night. The stars above are bright and twinkling. Geysers rumble in the distance. The trees rustle and whisper. ‘Are you sure you know the way?’ whispers Vivi after a while. I nod. ‘There’s a sign somewhere here.’ I shine the torch around as we walk. Finally, the flashlight hits the sign and it gleams back at us. ‘There. Look!’ I say excitedly. It points to a smaller road we haven’t been down yet. ‘It’s just down there.’ ‘Great!’ she says. We walk in silence. It seems strange to disturb the quietness of the night. ‘I wish I could stay on this trip forever,’ says Vivi, breaking it. ‘How come?’ I ask. Through the darkness I can just see her shrug.
There is dense forest on either side of the road. It looks scary. Being on the road I feel safe though, distanced from it. The truth is I’m nervous about getting to this pool. What if, after everything, it doesn’t work?’ ‘What if it’s not enough?’ I say out loud without thinking. Vivi glances at me. ‘All you can do is try, right?’ Her voice is shaky and scared. From the moonlight, I spot a shadow on the road ahead. An animal crossing. I put my hand out and stop Vivi. ‘What is that?’ she asks. ‘A mountain lion?’ The animal stops and looks straight at us. Then it alters its path and starts heading in our direction, walking on all fours until it stops about twenty yards away. It’s bigger than I first thought. It has a bulky body but no antlers or pointy ears like an elk and it’s too round for a big cat. Maybe a badger? No, it’s waaaay too big. My heart pounds. It rears up on its back legs and is about eight foot tall. It’s definitely not a badger. It’s a bear. A huge grizzly bear, making a low growling sound. Watching us.
‘Do you have the bear spray?’ I whisper. I can’t believe that I didn’t think to bring it myself. Bandit scurries from my arms to the hood of my jacket. Seb reaches slowly into his pocket. Terror ripples through my body. How big the bear is takes my breath away – and how strong and powerful and wild. I can’t take my eyes off it. Even its paw must be four times the size of my hand. One swipe and I’d be knocked out cold. We shouldn’t be here. We made a bad decision. There are no fences here. All of this place is bear territory. I saw the bison crossing the road the yesterday, I know that there’s nothing to stop the animals coming on to the road. Everything inside me is screaming at myself to run back to the camp, back to Dad. But it’s too late now. I know that bears can run very fast. The bear lowers itself to all fours and pats the ground with its paw aggressively. ‘Slowly back away,’ Seb says to me in a low voice. The spray is in his hand now. The bear has a dished face, rounded ears, and a large shoulder hump. It opens its mouth, and sharp pointy teeth glimmer in the moonlight. The bear looks angry, upset that we’re in its home. I try and slowly back away, half-frozen with fear. This doesn’t feel like it’s really happening.
If you could travel anywhere in the UNIVERSE … Where would you go? Who would you take with you? What’s one thing that you would definitely bring with you? You can be as creative as you want: you could take a pet with you, or travel somewhere unreachable like the bottom of the sea, or even bring a wand in your pocket.
What are two things that you can see in this new setting?
What can you feel?
What can you smell?
What can you taste?
It could be an old twisty oak tree, or a shooting star, or …
It could be the crunchy frosty grass under your feet, or the warm sun on your face, or …
It could be wood smoke, or freshly cut grass, or …
Maybe ice cream, or the salty sea air, or …
Now have a go at writing a paragraph about arriving in your chosen setting. Try and include all the points you listed. Have fun and happy writing everyone!
Writing tips created by Jess Butterworth.
by Catherine O’Flynn
It’s a typical Thursday afternoon at New Heath Primary School. Rain streams down the outside of the windows, the radiators are on full blast and I’m carrying out routine surveillance on my classmates. I sneak my top-secret notebook out of my pocket and look around discreetly. Class 6B is supposed to be doing silent reading, but even someone without my advanced level observation skills could see that pretty much nobody in the room is either silent or reading. Jessica Pemberton and Maryam Begum are playing Rock Paper Scissors. Mustafa P is writing AVFC on his knuckles with a sharpie. Rosy Hannah is drawing a picture of a guinea pig (unless I tell you otherwise assume Rosy Hannah is always drawing a picture of a guinea pig because ... well ... she always is) and Kelly Keogh has nodded off. I pick up my pencil and write the day’s date in my notebook. I take another long look around the room, sigh and write in small letters: 1. Nothing to report Everyone in 6B knows that ‘silent reading’ is just code. Not the kind of exciting top-secret code used by undercover detectives, but the kind of really quite boring and sometimes confusing code used by teachers. When Mr Probert says, ‘Take out your books and get on with some silent reading’, what he really means is, ‘Give me five minutes to get the interactive whiteboard working again.’ Everyone knows this.
Everyone that is except Max Ellington who sits next to me and is actually silent and is actually reading. Max is the tallest person in the class and seems even taller as, no matter how hard she tries (and to be honest I’m not sure she tries that hard), her hair always sticks straight up. Her hair also manages to trap lots of airborne objects – like small leaves and flying ants and occasionally pencil sharpenings. It’s quite distracting sitting next to Max’s hair. Sometimes when I’m supposed to be converting fractions into decimals, I find myself trying to identify stray items trapped on her head instead. Max is currently buried in a book called Marsupial Factfile and nothing will distract her. I reckon that Max already knows more facts about marsupials and probably every other species and sub-species of animal on earth than most people would think normal. Max isn’t what most people would think normal though, she’d be the first to say that. As I’ve mentioned, I spend my ‘silent reading’ time scanning the room for clues, suspects or any hint of criminal intent. Some people would say that keeping a constant eye on my classmates and noting down details about them in a secret notebook isn’t what most people would think normal either. That’s probably why Max and I stick together. I’m Lori Mason and I’m a private detective. Or at least I would be if I had anything to detect. I had a big break earlier in the year when I cracked a major case. Max went missing, cash was stolen and the class hamster was involved in money laundering. Since then though things have been quiet. Too quiet. There was the short-lived mystery of Elijah Stephen’s missing bike last month, but it turned out Mr Cheetham the caretaker had just moved it because it was a trip hazard. (If Mr Cheetham was a superhero, Trip Hazard would be the name of his arch-enemy. His life is an endless, one-man battle against things left lying on the ground.) I mean, I was glad for Elijah that the bike turned up, but if I’m completely honest I was also a bit disappointed. I wanted mystery, intrigue, deception and cover-up, not another one of Mr Cheetham’s really quite long PowerPoint presentations on health and safety. It’s not that I long for bad things to happen but crime-fighting is tough when there’s just no crime.
Extract from Lori & Max and the Book Thieves. This is the second book in the Lori & Max series. Text © Catherine O’Flynn Published by Firefly Press
Create your very own detective badge here. Which police department are you from? What is your special detective name?
Describe by drawing or writing the scene below so that you can report it to your boss and colleagues.
by Veronica Cossantelli
Illustration by Melissa Castrillón
Veronica Cossantelli is an author and teacher who recently re-wrote “The Marvellous Land of The Snergs”, a book originally written by E A Wyke Smith in 1927, that inspired J.R.R.Tolkien to write The Hobbit. The Marvellous Land of The Snergs is published by Chicken House
Before I sit down to type the words Chapter One, I like to have two things clear in my head: a first sentence – and a last one. Stories are like journeys: it helps if you know where you are going.
You’re the boss; it’s up to you whether your hero – whoever he/she/they may be – gets the ending they are hoping for. There’s only one rule: don’t make it too easy for them. Put a problem – or a whole obstacle course of problems – between them and their goal.
If you can’t think of a problem, begin with the Bad Guy or Girl. Most authors have a soft spot for their villains – the nastier the better. They are fun to write and you can dream up all sorts of dreadful fates to serve them right for being horrible. A good Baddie deserves care and attention, so consider what they want and why. This may give you the missing pieces of your plot.
Your characters are inside your head but you also need to get inside theirs. Know how they’re feeling and why they behave as they do. Make them talk to each other: this will help bring them to life. What do their voices sound like? Know what they dream of and what they fear – but know the little things, too. Do they bite their nails, or collect tropical fish, or twiddle their hair? What do they eat for breakfast? If they found a spider in the bath, what would they do? If they were an animal, what sort would they be? (You can practise this on people in real life. It’s probably kinder not to tell them, if you decide they’re a walrus or a slug.)
If your hero actually is an animal, (or an alien, or a robot, or a lost sock) then switch it around. What sort of human would they be? Quiet and shy, or loud and bossy? Polite and helpful, or rude and snappy
Real life isn’t always what we want it to be, so pack a sandwich, set off into the weird and wonderful wilderness of your imagination and – the most important thing of all – enjoy the ride!
h Write the title
ere:
What is your favourite book of all times?
Describe here why you love it so much.
Can you finish this story by drawing what happens to Mabel & Molly? Mabel & Molly were just about to step outside when...
Extract from The Night Bus Hero written by
‘HECTOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRGGGGGH! STOP RIGHT THERE!’ I froze with my hand hovering above the large vat of bright red tomato soup. It would have been a perfectly ordinary pot of soup, if it hadn’t been for the long, bright green rubber snake that was now floating around right in the middle of it. ‘HECTOOOOORRR! I’M WARNING YOU!’ I slowly turned to look over my shoulder. I could see all the dinner ladies in their bright blue uniforms staring at me with their mouths wide open, like doors someone had forgot to shut. Everyone in the dinner hall had frozen. Except for Mr Lancaster. His mouth was open wide too, and getting wider like a big black hole. I could tell he was getting ready to explode because his face had gone as pink as a baboon’s bottom, and his nose was starting to twitch. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he hissed, glaring at the second rubber snake I was holding in my hand. I looked down at the second snake. This one was bright red. Almost as bright red as the boring soup Mrs Baxter had made. I knew I had two options. The first one was to not drop the second snake in. I would still get punished for the green snake, but maybe it wouldn’t be quite as bad. The second option was to drop the snake in. That would make Mr Lancaster even madder than he already was and make Mrs Baxter really mad. But it would serve her right for being the worst dinner lady we’d ever had – always narrowing her eyes and giving us the smallest spoonfuls of the things we wanted, and plonking giant spoonfuls of the things we hated on to our plates. It was about time someone got her back. Plus it would make Will and Katie, my two best friends, laugh. ‘WELL? WELL?’ said Mr Lancaster. Looking back at Mr Lancaster, I grinned and let go of the snake. A gasp echoed around the dinner hall as the second rubber snake joined the first with a splash. Blobs of tomato soup flew out everywhere. A splodge landed with a SPLAT on Mrs Baxter’s head. A second lump hit with a SCHLOP on another dinner lady’s cheek. A third struck with a GLOOP on Mr Lancaster’s twitchy nose, and oozed down to the floor with a drip, drip, drip.
Illustration by Pippa Curnick Text © Onjali Q Raúf 2020
Fill in the gaps to complete this strange tale.
There was once a bunch of __________________ who lived by the __________________ . One morning, as they were about to __________________, a __________________ landed on their feet. “What on earth is this?”, they shouted at the same time. “Hello. I am __________________ , your friendly __________________ . I am a bit lost and wondered whether you could __________________ to take me back to __________________ ?” asked the creature. Charmed by the politeness of this __________________ , the __________________ agreed. “Hop on and we will take you back to __________________” they said. “Actually,” said the __________________ “since I don’t have to rush back, could you show me the __________________ ?” Even though it was a long way, they thought why not? They enjoyed it so much that they are to this day still __________________ across the __________________ , having become friends for life on the way.
I know if there’s an unpeeled banana in the room or a semi-peeled banana, banana puree, banana bread or banana milkshake. I even know when someone in my family has eaten a banana – I can detect the scent on their skin like a bloodhound. I absolutely positively hate bananas: they are the worst fruit in the world. I used to like the sweet taste but the smell is enough to make my stomach turn and make my insides churn. It’s my body’s way of saying, ‘Get that thing away from me!’
by Rakhshan Rizwan
I got really hungry the other day, and there was nothing in the fridge that I could readily eat except bananas. I had to pinch my nose and then gobble them down, ugh – it was an awful moment. I was holding my breath the entire time, eating it bit by bit. I ate a banana to survive. I think this is what pirates feel when they are lost at sea for days and don’t have any sustenance. They do what they need to do to get through, including eating the parrot on their shoulder or someone’s finger.
From My Sneezes Are Perfect by Rakhshan Rizwan (The Emma Press, 2021) Illustrated by Benjamin Phillips.
Write a poem about some really stinky food!
How Brave is the Wren and Wordplay would like to thank the following authors and illustrators for their contributions to the magazine: Joshua Seigal, James Campbell, Rob Jones, Alys Fowler, Heidi Griffiths, Ally Sherick, Kate Wakeling, Elīna Brasliņa, Swapna Haddow, Sheena Dempsey, Jess Butterworth, Rob Biddulph, Catherine O’Flynn, Veronica Cossanteli, Melissa Castrillón, Onjali Q. Raúf, Pippa Curnick, Rakhshan Rizwan (and her six-year-old son Yusuf), Benjamin Phillips, Ben Javens. Thank you also to the following publishers for their support: Bloomsbury, Chicken House Books, Faber & Faber, Firefly Press, Hachette Children’s Group, The Emma Press. Special thanks to Cathy Olmedillas for all her magazine wisdom. Word Play has been supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. You can find all of the books featured in any good library, or if you wish to spend some pocket money please visit www.howbraveisthewren.com
This book was created by How Brave is the Wren, the travelling caravan-bookshop. www.howbraveisthewren.com