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Matt Hunt Books

the goat and the stoat and the boat

The Goat and the Stoat and the Boat

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Picturebook

A raucous, rhyming tale that will have children (and adults) in fits of laughter!

Stoat is playing in his favourite boat when suddenly Goat comes bounding in! Chaos ensues as an angry Stoat tries to chase Goat out of his boat. But before long, Goat and Stoat’s lively antics make the boat wibble and wobble! Uh-oh! Can Stoat float in the water? And will Goat’s colourful coat be ruined?

From the duo behind the bestselling The Cat and the Rat and the Hat comes this hilarious, read-aloud picture book, bursting with comic capers and animal antics.

Features a hilarious, tongue-twister text, slapstick humour, bright neon artwork and colourful characters.

Perfect for fans of Oi Frog!

Every Nosy Crow paperback picture book comes with a free ‘Stories Aloud’ audio recording – just scan the QR code and listen along!

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the bear and the hare and the fair

The Bear and the Hare and the Fair

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Picturebook

The superbly clever, laugh-out-loud rhyming book is sure to be another hit in the classroom. It’s brilliant to have books that make exploring phonics and spelling patterns so much fun. They’re great for reading for pleasure too.

Following on from The Cat and the Rat and the Hat, and The Goat and the Stoat and the Boat, The Bear and the Hare and the Fair cleverly combines phase 5 phonics with hilarious antics. As the title suggests, Hare persuades Bear from the chair in his lair and off they head to the fair. They tempt each other with different rides and seem to have rather different tastes! But do Bear and Hare dare to go on the rollercoaster?!

With hilarious illustrations, joyous rhymes and great onomatopoeia too, this one is lots of fun to read aloud and join in with.

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up high

Up High

Picturebook

The book is taller and thinner than the majority of picture books, which links to the heading ‘Up High’.

The author is both the writer and the illustrator, with a distinctive style. The story explores the special bond between a father and son on a day out together. Each double page has one large illustration, which has many details to spot such as the many tattoos on the dad’s arms and a few Lego pieces on the floor when the boy is having his shoes put on. On the journey to town, the son does not like how busy it is so his father puts him on his shoulder ‘up high’ where the son now feels safe and notices everything around him. The journey explores activities, which children can relate to such as walking through a park and looking in ‘boring’ and ‘delicious’ shop windows.

From feeling small at the beginning of the story, during lunch, the boy notices all the little things around that make him feel giant. Throughout the story, the love between them is evident and it is a very heart-warming read for both children and adults.

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stephen hawking

Stephen Hawking (Little People, Big Dreams)

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Non-fiction

In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillion-copy bestselling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the life of Stephen Hawking, the genius physicist and author.

When Stephen Hawking was a little boy, he used to stare up at the stars and wonder about the universe. Although he was never top of the class, his curiosity took him to the best universities in England: Oxford and Cambridge. It also led him to make one of the biggest scientific discoveries of the 20th century: Hawking radiation. This moving book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the brilliant physicist’s life.

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a first book of dinosaurs

A First Book of Dinosaurs

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Poetry

A substantial hardback (like the Tyrannosaurus!), beautifully illustrated in full colour to inform about and celebrate dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes. The flamingo-pink endpapers are decorated with a riot of dinosaur characters waiting to be discovered. The contents page lists the eight main dinosaurs chosen to be represented in prehistoric poems: an unusual mix of non-fiction and poetry. Followed by ten more in the ‘eat, or be eaten’ section. Then we have a section on the main dinosaur families. We like the handy pronunciation guide that accompanies each header, eg, her-air-ruh-saw-rus.

There is much to interest both children and adults in this dinosaur-themed book. We particularly liked learning about the dinosaur timeline, which starts, ‘a really, really, really long time ago…’ and brings us up to date with a double-page spread about finding fossils.

A rare and interesting specimen of a book, recommended for all dinosaur lovers, to be treasured and read over and over again.

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the pirates are coming

The Pirates are Coming!

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Picturebook

Every day Tom climbs to the top of a high hill and looks for pirate ships so that he can tell the villagers to go into hiding. The problem is that he keeps ringing his bell and shouting “PIRATES!” – but the vessels turn out not to be pirate ships. The villagers start to get tired of hiding, but what happens when one day a real pirate ship does arrive?

The Pirates are Coming is a fun new retelling of Aesop’s fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. The repeated phrases with their implied actions and vocal expression means that this is a fun book to read with young children.

Matt Hunt’s lively and vibrant illustrations add an extra splash of humour to this pirate theme picturebook. The inventive ways in which the villagers hide are particularly funny.  The Pirates are Coming is a vibrant and fresh approach towards an old favourite cautionary tale.

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a whale of a time a funny poem for every day of the year

A Whale of a Time: A Funny Poem for Every Day of the Year

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Poetry
resources-available

Whale of a Time contains a funny poem for every day of the year. It’s a real stunner of a book – a gorgeously bound hardback compendium with full-page colour illustrations by Matt Hunt, who is well known for illustrating funny children’s books.

Readers can have fun dipping in and out of the pages and reading funny poems both familiar and new  – flicking through to the entries for today, tomorrow, our birthdays, family and friends’ birthday and other special dates in the calendar, as well as pausing on random pages that catch our attention due to the illustrations or the titles of the poems.

It’s the kind of collection that is perfect for a teacher’s desk or family coffee table to open when there’s a spare few minutes in the day (and makes a fantastic gift for homes or classrooms). This is a book to treasure and one that sings of the joy of poetry and rhyme.

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king charles

King Charles (Little People, Big Dreams)

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Non-fiction, Picturebook

Little Charles always knew that, one day, he would have a big job to do. As the son of Queen Elizabeth II, he was a prince, and in the future, he was to inherit the throne of the United Kingdom.

As a young man, he developed a passion for one cause; the environment. Charles recognised that plastics and pollutants were causing harm to Earth, and as the Prince of Wales, he spent all his efforts championing climate justice and sustainability.

As a member of the Royal Family, Charles used his power to build important organisations such as The Prince’s Trust, a charity that works to improve the lives of young people across the UK.

And in 2022, when he became King, he pledged that he would spend the rest of his life serving his people with loyalty, respect and love.

This inspiring book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the royal’s life, from little prince to grown-up king.

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The Cat and the Rat and the Hat

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Picturebook

The Cat And the Rat And The Hat by Em Lynas and Matt Hunt is going to be a firm favourite of mine for reading to KS1 classes! As a cat-owner (slave?) myself, I absolutely love the scene-setting of the cat on the mat, playing and sleeping and dreaming…only to be interrupted by the rat, swanning around in his great big hat. The ensuing tug-of-war fight is brilliantly illustrated, the back-and-forth pictures giving children lots to notice and comment on. This is where the book really comes into its own as both a class read-aloud and a shared-focus – in a class situation you’ll have children taking sides, you could even act it out with props and be completely raucous!

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