Animagicals: Music

by Carol Diggory Shields

Mysteriously arresting images and delightfully intriguing verse - compel readers to open the flap to reveal... an Animagical. Award-winning, best-selling poet Carol Diggory Shields matches talents with a young artist who casts a unique eye on the world, Svetlan Junakovic. The results are exuberantly witty, astonishingly unexpected, and always wonderful. Each title sports twelve spreads, twelve verses with an Ogden Nash-like whimsy, and twelve visual surprises. Deceptively simple and devilishly complex-these are books that everyone from toddlers to adults can crow about.

12 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Carol Diggory Shields was inspired to write Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp after "being called a Nagosaurus by my five-year-old," she admits. "I started playing with the idea of partying dinosaurs who were scientifically accurate (more or less), and somehow in the prehistoric ooze of my brain, Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp took shape." Her rocking prehistoric party proved a hit with both young readers and critics. "Witty and imaginative, the poem has a rhythm that makes cumbersome multisyllable dinosaur names roll off the tongue," said Kirkus Reviews.
Currently a children's librarian, Carol Diggory Shields has also worked with children as a recreational therapist and at one time was a designer of stuffed toys. Her years of being around children have no doubt helped her get a feel for the fun-but-factual stories that kids love, told in animated verse with an infectious beat. After successfully collaborating with illustrator Scott Nash on Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp, she teamed up with him for Martian Rock, "the true story of how a meteorite from Mars arrived on Earth," she quips.
More recently, the pair worked together again on The Bugliest Bug, a wacky tale of an insect talent contest threatened by hungry spiders (disguised as judges) and a brave little Damselfy who saves the day. "Insects are awesome!," the author enthuses. "Every human invention, from catapults to jet propulsion, had already been invented and used by bugs for millions of years. And that's why to be 'bugly' is the ultimate compliment."
The author of several books for children, Carol Diggory Shields lives in northern California.