The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice

January 1, 2021
Who wouldn't welcome a smattering of advice now and then? Even if some of its practicality seems questionable. This collection is divided into four sections "mainly relating" to broad topics such as food or animals. Explored largely in free verse are topics ranging from the many similarities between blackbirds and bananas, how many is too many tigers at a picnic, and the value of an onion for self-defense. Of course, there is a healthy mix of wordplay, absurdism, and the occasional actually profound thought. Harrold includes some interactive features, such as blank spaces for readers to contribute their own poems or drawings and the Advice-a-Tron 216, a chart that generates pieces of advice with a six-sided die. In addition to some pages of "free-floating advice" readers are encouraged to cut out, there is an index that locates both references within the book and sundry other things, like "where to find more" books ("the library"). This collection contains a fair amount of Briticisms (a poem called "Jumper" closes cheekily with a joke about "a sweater") that may require some help for readers new to them. As observed in the initial "Note for the Reader," Grey's illustrations are "beautifully colorful," with a fancy-free, sketchlike quality characterized by dynamic lines and perspectives. The author, a White, bearded man, appears in a drawn incarnation throughout; of background human characters, only a couple read as people of color. A good bit of fun. (Poetry. 8-12)

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March 1, 2021
Grades 1-4 *Starred Review* In this generous poetry collection, previously published in the UK, Harrold offers rhymed and free-verse warnings to, for instance, avoid tigers lurking under your toast, ducks in your soup (Why? "I sip the soupy stuff . . . / which tastes like the underside / of a swimming duck"), and the "mushroomy feetiness" of Granny's Bourbonzola biscuits. Elsewhere he compares blackbirds and bananas (both "surprising, but not unheard of" pie fillings), wonders how to grow a lamppost ("Perhaps I'll plant a desk lamp / and water it each night"), catalogs "Silences" ("Cat paws through the garden. / Butterflies in flight. / Morning daisies yawning. / the slowly falling night"), and invites readers to create their own cautionary admonitions after filling the blank spaces in a mix-and-match "Advice-A-Tron." Grey's illustrations capture the freewheeling spirit of the poems with bright and funny images ranging from a hybrid banana-bird and a predatory-looking collage of photographed toast slices to an entire mixed spread of cakes and very similar-looking rocks that, luckily, comes with a key. The author generously offers refunds to any readers eaten by tigers.

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