22nd July Rachel Morrisoe

At the beginning of the year I bought a picture book called The Drama Llama by Rachel Morrisoe and Ella Okstad for the library.  I bought it because it is about llamas which are popular in our library and because it was one of the books shortlisted for the Early Childhood section of the  Spark! School Book Awards, 2023 prize. These awards are voted for by young children, so I know that the books on this shortlist will appeal to my young students. When I read the blurb and saw that it was about a child who worried I knew it would also be read by teachers. Win win!

In fact the book won its category. I knew of Ella Okstad, but I had not heard of Rachel Morrisoe, so I went looking for more books by her. She is an English children's author. She is fairly new at this writing gig so she only has four books so far. I bought How to Grow a Unicorn and How to Grow a Dragon because they were cheap paperbacks, illustrated by Steven Lenton of Shifty McGifty fame, and I thought they fitted the Book Week theme well, Read, Grow, Inspire. They certainly do that.

In these rhyming stories we meet Sarah and Mr Pottifer's Parlour of Plants, a magical shop with the most surprising plants you'll ever see! Sarah goes to the shop to buy the perfect gift for her grandmother who loves gardens. When she gets to the shop, everything grows wildly out -of-hand and the plants grow magical creatures. This hilarious book will inspire young readers to live their own unicorn fantasy.

Sarah ends up working for Mr Pottifer and then in the second book, an unexpected delivery of dragodil seeds provides the perfect chance for Sarah and Mr Pottifer to grow helpful dragon pets for their customers - or does it? It turns out that these fiery dragons are not very well-behaved at all... and everything soon spirals into smoke-filled, out-of-control DRAGON CHAOS!

I'm not sure if there's more to come, but there is certainly room to be inspired by other magical creatures that Sarah and Mr Pottifer could organise. What would you buy at Mr Pottifer's Parlour of Plants? Why is it called a parlour and not a shop?

The fourth Rachel Morrisoe book, The Truth About Yeticorns  which is also illustrated by Ella Okstad has just been released and this time the focus is on telling fibs.

Meet Sarah