Books by John Arthur Nichol

Kids at Landfill Public School are bouncing off the walls with excitement because it's ... Book Parade!It's also Sascha Martin's News Day. Mr Jack and Mrs Barnum should be terrified. But they're upbeat, they're confident, they're ready to catch anything the day can throw at them. What's going on?Mrs Mayhem is dusting off the First Aid Kit, but Sascha's new invention is perfectly safe, he says ... as long as no one drops it.Why can't they drop it? Sascha won't say, and Mary-Alice Cooper will do anything to find out.Could things get out of hand? They certainly could, and it wouldn't take much to set the ball rolling.One small misstep for Sascha. Check.One giant leap for Mr Jack. Check.One girl who won't take "Just be patient, Mary-Alice," for an answer. Check.From John Arthur Nichol and Manuela Pentangelo, the team who brought you Sascha Martin's Rocket-Ship and Sascha Martin's Time Machine, comes the latest chortle-inducing catastrophe from the chain of disasters that is the Sascha Martin series.Sascha Martin's Super Ball. His worst disaster yet, by leaps and bounds.

Edward Lear is remembered, and rightly so, as the Father of the Limerick. Were it not for him, this little five line verse form may never have become such a beloved, ubiquitous part of our literary and popular culture.Yet the very thing that makes the limerick so appealing held no appeal for Edward Lear. The final line of his verses brought no twist, and sought no giggle. It was a summing up, and nothing more.But Lear had opened Victorian eyes to the possibilities inherent in the limerick: A Book of Nonsense was a runaway bestseller.In 1872 Lear published one hundred new limericks, hoping to repeat his earlier success. But while his original verses are still fondly remembered today, still anthologised, still quoted in mainstream and social media, his next hundred limericks are unknown.Why?Because the limerick had moved on without him, acquiring a life of its own and romping towards the twentieth century with outlandish, irreverent and often obscene delight.And Lear couldn''t follow. It just wasn''t in his nature to go there. So having launched the boat, he now stood alone on the dock and watched it sail off into the distance.Limericks After Lear breathes new life into Edward Lear''s creations. Book One, The Fifth Line, took A Book of Nonsense as its starting point and sent all 112 verses off in new directions.Book Two retrieves those lost, forgotten verses of 1872 and presents them complete: all 100 of Lear''s originals, plus a brand new limerick for each that, I hope, will make you giggle.They''re family-friendly, too :)

There was an Old Man who was cheered
When the birds made a home in his beard;
But the ostrich was banned
On account of the sand,
So it stood at the window and sneered.One hundred and twelve brand new limericks based on Edward Lear''s ground-breaking work, A Book of Nonsense.
Plus Edward Lear''s original verses.
That''s two hundred and twenty four limericks!
But why the new new take on old poems?
Because Edward Lear skipped the most important part of a limerick - the fifth line, which adds a twist to the story and makes us chuckle.
The Fifth Line draws on every verse in A Book of Nonsense, creating from each a brand new limerick with the twist and chuckle it deserves.
They''re all here, from An Old Man With a Nose to A Young Lady Whose Bonnet, and everything in between.
The Fifth Line: Limericks After Lear.
Plus Lear.

Sascha Martin's Rocket-Ship is a very funny illustrated story about a boy's chaotic journey on the tail of his runaway rocket.Smashing through walls, tearing along corridors, breaking rooves, looping and diving, the rocket roars into the skies above Landfill Public School with Sascha, two screaming teachers and an oven full of pies attached, while a host of educational bric a brac swirls along in its wake.Told in hilarious rhyming verse and beautiful, full colour illustrations, Sascha Martin's Rocket-Ship is perfect for reading aloud and sharing. The intended audience age of 8 to 10 isn't set in concrete. Sascha Martin's Rocket-Ship has been delighting children of all ages, and grown-ups, ever since its launch in 2016.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the past! It's News Day again for Sascha Martin, Landfill Public School's inventive 8 year old, and a new invention brings his classmates face to face with the living, breathing, stomping, chomping, leaping, climbing, gnashing, slashing megafauna (really big animals) that lived in Australia 12,000 years ago. Plus a ring-in from much, much earlier, and he's not happy at all! Life back then was all about not being eaten, and the challenge is almost too much for Sascha, Luca, and Mary-Alice, and Mr Jack and Mrs Barnum, and all the other teachers and children swept up in Sascha's new Show and Tell miscalculation.This hilarious, epic sequel to Sascha Martin's Rocket-Ship adds a new twist to the time travel genre, poking the boundaries of science fiction and taking children where no child has gone before - to a school overrun by enormous prehistoric creatures.