Jimmy Finnigan's wild wood band - Tom Knight

Jimmy Finnigan's village is the nicest place you've ever seen. It's so
nice that nothing ever seems to happen. Jimmy dreams of being a musician
and wants to start a band, but no one in the village wants to join. So
he starts to look further afield for band members . . . and ventures
into the wild wood.

Tom Knight is an illustrator from the east coast of England. After ten years of working as a graphic designer, he realised that true happiness lay in drawing pictures in his garden shed. He has illustrated several picture books for other writers, including The Big Bed by Bunmi Laditan. Good Knight, Bad Knight (Templar) was his first book as author and illustrator. He is also author ofJimmy Finnigan's Wild Wood Band (Templar) and Good Knight Big Knight and the Big Game (Templar.

This book rocked up at exactly the right time as my youngest son is currently obsessed with playing his drum kit and dancing around to his favourite Black Sabbath songs!
My pre-schooler really enjoyed this story, particularly when he learnt what was hidden in the woods. I liked the vibrant illustrations and humour within and the way it highlighted the transformative power of music.
Library Girl and Book Boy Blog - Library Girl

Suitably zany, action-packed, wilder than wild, illustrations accompany Tom Knight's boogying extravaganza. Get your ear plugs ready, your bodies bopping and join the fun. Some of those spirited scenes certainly got me going.
Red Reading Hub

Author and illustrator Tom Knight, the magical master of gloriously comical picture books, has conjured up an anarchic odyssey of music and mayhem... and you might want to join in the fun!

Little ones will be plugging in their guitars, waving their arms in the air, wiggling their bottoms and jumping for joy when they meet the wildest band in town and get stuck into Jimmy's wild dancing extravaganza! A beautifully illustrated, uplifting and inclusive picture book about making friends and discovering your wild side!
Lancashire Evening Post - Pam Norfolk

Jimmy Finnigan's Wild Wood Band is a great story for showing how important it is to follow your dreams and it also conveys the positive effect that music can have in life. Jimmy loves music and wants to start a band but when he can't find anybody in his village to join him he ventures into the wild wood...

We love the way that Jimmy changes his look from nice and neat to 'rockstar' as the story progresses, the humour in the illustrations portrays the change in the way that he does his hair and wears his school tie. We love Tom Knight's illustrations and it's hard to pick favourites. I love the pictures of Sergeant Marchant who, due to the low crime rate in the village, spends a lot of his time knitting for an unusual clientele!! My daughter loves the picture of the animals practising their different instruments, she especially loves the big bear who plays the drums.
Jimmy Finnigan's Wild Wood Band is a fabulous story to include in a school topic on music and instruments. Children could choose an animal and a musical instrument and paint them for a classroom wall display. Painting to music is a fun classroom activity and can really inspire children to get creative and feel the beat of the music as they paint.
Story Snug - Catherine Friess

Jimmy Finnigan's village is the nicest place you've ever seen. It' - the only thing that spoils it is the woods. Jimmy dreams of being a musician and wants to start a band, but no one in the village wants to join. So he starts to look further afield for band members... and the only place left to look is the wild wood. Will Jimmy be safe - and will he achieve his ambition? A super story about determination, the power of music and the impact it has.
Parents in Touch

The mix of traditional picture book spreads and comic features such as panels and speech bubbles bring a brilliant dynamic and pace to this enjoyable tale.
Jimmy's great facial expressions are one of the many fun details within the artwork which will delight young readers.
Though a great read for budding rock stars, it is nonetheless first and foremost a tale of embracing not only our own wild side but those that we might perceive as different, and proves that music does indeed bring people together.
?
Armadillo Magazine - Mlanie McGilloway

Jimmy Finnigan Lives in the nicest village in the world. The grass is neat, the people are neat and Muffington's cake shop has been serving exactly the same cakes since 1923. Everything changes when Jimmy goes into his parents loft in search of a 'nice board game'. There he finds their old record collection. From then on, he wants to form a band. Every time he puts a poster up advertising for fellow band members it is taken down, but not before the creatures living in the Wild Wood see it. Jimmy and the Wild Wood beasts form a band and when the townsfolk enter the woods to rescue Jimmy they find themselves dancing wildly to the music. From then on the village is a changed place: 'It's still a really nice place to live, but now it's just a little bit wild too.'

This is an attractively illustrated picture book that captures the spirit of the prim and proper village and contrasting witchy darkness of the Wild Woods. Children could create their own 'wild' music by considering how to emanate the sounds of the forest with percussion instruments.
Practical Pre-School