The Armadillo Under My Pillow:
Potty Poems for a Barmy Bedtime

by Chris White

ISBN 978-1-872438-82-5  (October 2002) A5 64pp illustrated by the author, pbk., £4.50

First there was a vegetarian vampire: then a shrew skilled in martial arts. After his previous two books, Chris White's latest idea, an Armadillo under your pillow, seems almost normal at first. Until you start to read it, that is. Then you realise just what you have got yourself into! If you lose a sock in bed, the Armadillo will knit you a new one. Sleep through the alarm, and he'll wake you by gently nibbling your ear. We could all wish for bedfellows like this scaly critter!

Children's author and illustrator Chris, the rising star of the King's England Press Potty Poets series, has subtitled this latest offering "Potty Poems for a Barmy Bedtime" but they could probably drive you batty at any time of the day. After only a brief acquaintance with Chris's poetry, you could find yourself looking through the eggs at the supermarket, in an effort to find one with chicken poo stuck to it (It's the Holy Grail of Dairy Produce/An egg with chicken poo!).

It gets worse! There are thoughts on a rubber duck, Rory the knitting dinosaur, and, once you've been nicely softened up by that, Chris hits you with Stinkypoo The Tummy Troll. If you ever wondered why you wake up with navel fluff and a strange smell in your bedroom, the answer is that Stinkypoo has visited you in the night, and cast his "flappy woofwoof spell".

So is it all unrelenting fun? No! in the brilliant poem Donkeys, Chris starts out by describing the donkeys in their field next to a traffic-jam. But the poem spins round in the final devastating stanza, "All of this time the donkeys stand in their field/Just watching, not making a fuss/ And it all makes you wonder, which ones are the donkeys/ is it them or is it us?"

If the book ended there it would still be up with the best of Chris's work, work which has seen him opening this year's Young Readers UK festival in Birmingham and being one of the poets in residence at Nottingham Central Library on National Poetry Day (October 10th) But it doesn't! We also meet Tinkerbell the Toothy-Peg Fairy, Chris's goldfish, who has become a pop-star, Chopsy, the Chubby Chihuahua, and Andrea, the Dolphin who can't swim. In a rip-roaring finale, Wang Foo the Kung Fu Shrew makes a surprise reappearance, seeing off Chris's granny's cat Tiger, and saving the life of a mouse. Which leaves the very last word to Stinkypoo, this time in the company of Fang the Bat, who seems about to make an appearance, then doesn't.

If you're already a fan of the zany world of Chris White, there's another load of chuckles in this book to delight and amuse you; if this is the first Chris White Potty Poets collection you've read, you couldn't have made a better choice!

To read about Chris's other books, click here:

Bitey The Veggie Vampire

Wang-Foo, the Kung-Fu Shrew

Shark in The Toilet!