Ros Asquith is a Guardian Cartoonist and already a hugely successful author for children and young people, creator of the Alien Schoolboy and Teenage Worrier books amongst others, but this is her first collection of poetry and it is really very good indeed. There’s a huge variety of form and subject in the collection, poems to make you laugh, insightful comments on the world and people around us, poems to make you stop short and think. Ros Asquith’s own witty illustrations make it particularly accessible but this is a sophisticated collection. ~ Andrea Reece
Life is dull for a dragon. For a dragon, time drags on. Frighten kid, eat princess, Breathe fire, cause distress. Day after deadly day, the same. Eat, scare, sleep, flame. How to be Batman, the Year Six Disco, the school bully, being alone, best mates, being a dragon...or vanishing - FWOOF! Funny, clever and thought-provoking, these poems are brilliant for reading at school or at home. With witty illustrations by the author, this is an exciting and distinctive debut collection.
Ros Asquith contributes a regular cartoon feature to The Guardian and achieved fame world wide for her Teenage Worrier books (realistic and funny explorations of teen problems and how to solve them) and the Trixie Tempest books aimed at the "tween" market of readers between the ages of nine and twelve. Her book Letters from an Alien Schoolboy was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Book Prize and The Great Big Book of Families, with Mary Hoffman, won the School Libraries Association Prize.
An honours graduate of Camberwell Art School, Asquith worked in graphic design and mural painting before moving into cartooning in the 1980s. She has also served as a theatre critic for several English periodicals. Since 1990 she has been well established as a cartoonist, author, and illustrator.
