Sunday, 11 June 2017

Blue Moon Animal Day

Welcome to Sally's book-a-day-for-2017 blog. If unfamiliar with the blog, scroll down.

Blue Moon Animal Day (1987) Post 162

Blue Moon Animal Day is a collection of five rhyming or part-rhyming stories comprising Caroline's Curry, The Frowning Farmer, The Pumpkin's Revenge, P-p-p-Petrified Paul and Blue Moon Animal Day.

I think the stories all began as picture book texts, but ended up in a "writer's collection" title. Looking at the now, I still enjoy them but I can see why they wouldn't have worked as picture book texts; far too macabre by half.

Here are some samples from three of the stories giving the tone and format:


Caroline's Curry

Caroline was rather cross
 and so were Mum and Dad
She thought that they were mean to her;
They said that she was bad.
They wouldn't let a hammer any nails into the floor
They wouldn't let her paint a face across the kitchen door
They wouldn't let her practice all the magic tricks she knew
They wouldn't even let her near the stove to make a stew
so Caroline was very cross and when she went to bed 
she didn't get a story so she made a plan instead

P-p-p-Petrified Paul

Mrs Witch had a boy known as P-p-p-Paul
Who would go in her garden to play
For a mum she was odd
But she'd watch him and nod and every morning she’d say …

The Pumpkin's Revenge

“I do regret that blood and bone,” yelled Peter, pounding with the stone
“and as for that manure too, I wish I'd left it at the zoo!”
The pumpkins grabbed him round the legs
“Traitor!” howled the monster veg 
 “Eat us eh?” a pumpkin said, bopping Peter on the head
But Peter didn't stop to talk

He grimly chopped that pumpkin’s stalk

The stories, especially The Pumpkin's Revenge and Caroline's Curry read aloud wonderfully well... The book is long out of print now.

About the Blog 


Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service, leave me a message.

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