The latest wacky offering from rising Potty Poets star Chris White, there's a healthy dose of humour within these pages. Penned in Chris's inimitable style, the endearing illustrations are a product of the same fertile imagination that has made vegetarian bat Bitey and rodent martial arts expert Wang Foo firm favourites with children country-wide. Now enter the armadillo!

About this book...

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! Children's author and illustrator Chris, the bright new voice 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.

Along with the scaly bedfellow that will knit you a new sock, should you lose one in bed, and wake you with a gentle ear nibble is a whole new barmy bunch of characters, and some familiar favourites, all guaranteed to make reading fun. There are musings on fears familiar to most children - "I Think There's a Monster Under My Bed" and "The Strangest Dream" - along with the more surreal workings of the author's mind.

If you've ever wondered why you wake up with navel fluff and a strange smell in the room, the answer is that "Stinkypoo the Tummy Troll" has visited during the night, showered your bed with grit and crumbs and cast his "flappy woofwoof spell"! Then there's the tale of "Chopsy the Chubby Chihuahua", the podgiest doggy around, and "Rory the Dinosaur", a reformed monster of a beast who takes up flower arranging.

So is it all unrelenting fun? No! Amidst Chris's off-the-wall humour lies a serious note in poems such as "Donkeys" where he comments on the social issues of road rage, the threat from exhaust emissions and factory pollution. But material such as the brilliant performance poem "Ooga Booga" and the excellent narrative of "Wang Foo 2: Re-enter the Shrew" form the mainstay of Chris's work. After reading this book you might just be that person, bored at the supermarket, who sets off in search of an egg smeared with chicken poo!

Chris's dynamic poetry performances, drawing from his wacky material, have led to him opening Birmingham's Young Readers UK 2003 festival and working as one of the poets in residence at Nottingham Central Library to celebrate National Poetry Day.

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

The Armadillo Under My Pillow
Potty Poems for a Barmy Bedtime
An Introduction by Stinkypoo the Tummy Troll, cartoon character

Hi! Stinkypoo the Tummy Troll here! You’ll meet me later in the book but, for now, I’m going to write this introduction as Chris is in the other room sulking (something about a goldfish).

I first met the author one cold, dark night as I flew in his window to give his tummy a good fluffing, but found him wide awake! It turned out he had found something amazing underneath his pillow and was frantically writing a poem about it!

Of course I fancied a piece of the action so we struck a deal. I (and some of my friends) got in the book in exchange for me not putting fluff in Chris’s belly-button ever again. (I never said anything about pinching his socks, though!)

So here in your hands are the fruits of that very weird night. But as I always say, ”When the going gets weird, the weird write poetry.”

Ooops! Gotta go – he’s coming back…