Asana and the Animals

by Grace Nichols

"If I had a giraffe - I'd climb up a ladder to her with a laugh. I'd rest my head against her long neck, And we'd go - riding riding riding..." This book sings with the rhymes of a little girl called Asana, who celebrates the animals that she knows and likes and dreams about - from a caterpillar to a Jersey cow, a hedgehog to a jogging ocelot, a giraffe to her grandmother's cat!

25 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 1998

About the author

Grace Nichols was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1950 and grew up in a small country village on the Guyanese coast. She moved to the city with her family when she was eight, an experience central to her first novel, Whole of a Morning Sky (1986), set in 1960s Guyana in the middle of the country's struggle for independence.

She worked as a teacher and journalist and, as part of a Diploma in Communications at the University of Guyana, spent time in some of the most remote areas of Guyana, a period that influenced her writings and initiated a strong interest in Guyanese folk tales, Amerindian myths and the South American civilisations of the Aztec and Inca. She has lived in the UK since 1977.

Her first poetry collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman, was published in 1983. The book won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and a subsequent film adaptation of the book was awarded a gold medal at the International Film and Television Festival of New York. The book was also dramatised for radio by the BBC. Subsequent poetry collections include The Fat Black Woman's Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), and Sunris (1996). She also writes books for children, inspired predominantly by Guyanese folklore and Amerindian legends, including Come on into My Tropical Garden (1988) and Give Yourself a Hug (1994). Everybody Got A Gift (2005) includes new and selected poems, and her collection, Startling the Flying Fish (2006), contains poems which tell the story of the Caribbean.



Her latest books are Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009); and I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (2010).


Grace Nichols lives in England with her partner, the poet John Agard.

Reviews

[Nicoll Blomquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

This colorful book of poetry about animals is beautifully illustrated. The students I read this book to really liked it. Most of the poems found in this book are fun to read and have a rhyming sing song quality about them.

This is a great book to have in the poetry collection of any library.

[Erin Franklin]

Not rating this because I recognise I'm nowhere near the intended audience. I put a hold on this at the library because I was really keen to read more of Grace Nichols's poetry without paying attention to the fact that it is a children's picture book. I will say, you can definitely tell that Nichols is a poet - even when writing fairly simplistic poems for a very young audience she plays around with form and isn't afraid to break rhyme and metre in fun ways. Also, the illustrations by Sarah Adams are gorgeous and really complement the poems. I probably would have really dug this as a small child.

[Khaleda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Asana and the animals by Grace Nichols is a good read for KS1 children or children new to reading.
A fun, colourful and engaging book with big and bold pictures. The short poems are perfect for young readers.