A beautiful and moving picture book from the UK's Children's Laureate, Joseph Coelho, tells the story of how a big, hairy argument gets in between two best friends.
"The argument came from nowhere.
It sat huge and bloated
in the middle of the playground
between me and my best friend."
This big hairy monster appears out of the blue one day, splitting up the best friends and growing bigger and bigger, until it starts to ruin all the children in the playground's fun.
Together, they learn how to shrink the monster until it vanishes completely, to the point where they can't even remember what it looks like!
Coelho's gentle and lyrical verse pair perfectly with Allison Colpoys' beautiful illustrations to create a book which will be treasured by young readers.
This is an ode to the power of an apology, and to treasuring a special bond that runs deeper than even the friends realised.
One Little Word
Description
Author Description
Joseph Coelho is an award winning poet and performer from London, although he now lives by the sea. In 2019 he won the Independent Bookshop Week Picture Book Award for If All the World Were which has been translated into 10 languages. He has been long-listed for The Carnegie Children's Award with his poetry collection 'Overheard In A Tower Block', which was also shortlisted for the CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award and Longlisted for the UKLA Book Awards. He won the 2015 CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award with his debut poetry collection Werewolf Club Rules. His debut Picture Book, Luna Loves Library Day was voted one of the nations favourite picture books by a survey led by World Book Day. His other poetry books include How To Write Poems and A Year Of Nature Poems .
He has written plays for companies including: Soho Theatre, Polka Theatre, The Unicorn Theatre, Theatre Royal York, Oily Cart and The Spark Children's Festival to name a few.
Joseph has been a guest poet on Cbeebies Rhyme Rocket, Radio 4's Poetry Playtime and Front Row. He is the presenter of BBC's Teach Poetry (Oct 2018) and features in DiscoveryEDUK's Poetry Curriculum
Allison Colpoys is an award-winning designer and illustrator. Her books include All the Ways to Be Smart, Under the Love Umbrella and My Beautiful Voice. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.