Riccardo Small lives on the Island. He's the smallest boy in his class at school, and he loves cricket. In fact, he's a walking cricket encyclopaedia and can tell you the averages of every West Indian test match player in history, the names of all the cricket grounds in the world and more besides. But Riccardo also loves poetry and songs - especially calypso. When he is dropped from the cricket team after missing a vital catch, Riccardo wanders the island, taking refuge in his poems. He meets Count Crayfish, an eccentric figure, well known on the Island for his triumphs in the Calypso Competition, and together they think of a way in which Riccardo can still help the cricket team...
Author Biography
Bob Cattell has been a cricket fan all his life and a supporter of the England team through thick and thin. He also supports Yorkshire, especially for their fast bowlers from Fred Trueman to Tim Bresnan.He is the author of the bestselling Glory Gardens series about cricket, highly recommended by TestMatch Special, and the Strikers series about football, written with David Ross. He also wrote the Butter-Finger cricket books for Frances Lincoln, with John Agard: Butter-Finger, Shine on, Butter-Finger and Big City Butter Finger (hugely entertaining - Carousel). Bob describes his own criciketing abilities as 'a left-arm sprin bowler who surprises batters with the lack of spin'. He lives in Suffolk. John Agard is one of the most popular and highly-regarded poets writing in Britain today. His poem Half-Caste is on the GCSE syllabus and he performs at Poetry Live events throughout the country. His adult collection, We Brits, was shortlisted for the 2007 British Book Awards Decibel Writer of the Year Award. His book for teens, The Young Inferno, won the CLPE Poetry Prize Award in 2009, was nominated for both the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards in 2010 and shortlisted for the 2010 UKLA Award. Goldilocks on CCTV, his poetry collection for 11 plus, inspired by fairy tales, is on the 2012 CLPE Award shortlist. John lives in Lewes, Sussex, with his wife the poet Grace Nichols.
