Wish You Were Here (And I Wasn't): A Book of Poems and Pictures for Globetrotters

This is top-notch nonsense poetry and rollicking rhymes written and illustrated by McNaughton. We visit the Australian bush, the jungle, space, deserts and go under the sea travelling by trains, boats, planes, cars, camels and even a bath. There are funny poems like ‘No Room To Swing a Cat!’: ‘My hotel room was tiny./ No room to swing a cat./ My cat was overjoyed and said/ “Well, thank the Lord for that!”’, wordplay – ‘Love me Wanda,/ Love me Twoda...’ – all the way up to ‘Love me Tenda, do!’ and a bulging suitcase of characters to unpack – teachers, Frankenstein, the Mega-Ultimate-Space-Beast and the roving eye. I particularly like the way McNaughton echoes traditional songs and poems and gives them a new twist as in ‘Row, row, row your bath’ and ‘I left my heart in San Francisco,/ My torso in Nepal’. A very funny and eventful journey through pictures and poems for younger readers and the adults in their lives.