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The Dunderheads

BfK No. 180 - January 2010
BfK 180 January 2010

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration is from Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon. Cressida Cowell is interviewed by Clive Barnes. Thanks to Hodder Children’s Books for their help with this January cover.

BfK No. 180 Articles

Editorial – January 2010

News and comment from the Editor.
Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne on appreciating picture books

Anthony Browne discusses sources of inspiration.

Movables: Paper Engineering Techniques and Their Use and Development in Children’s Books

Mike Simkin and Rosemary Temperley explain.
Multi-lingual Storytelling

Anna McQuinn discusses storytelling with children with different home languages.
Authorgraph No.180: Cressida Cowell

Cressida Cowell interviewed by Clive Barnes
Sharon Creech: a writer who takes risks

Sharon Creech talks to Julia Eccleshare about her latest book.
BfK Briefing – January 2010

AWARDS
Hal’s Reading Diary – January 2010

Roger Mills on sharing the Harry Potter books at bedtime.
I Wish I’d Written…: Jeffy, the Burglar’s Cat

Hilda Offen chooses Ursula Moray Williams’s Jeffy, the Burglar’s Cat.

Good Reads: Trafalgar Junior School, Twickenham, Middlesex.

Reviews from pupils of Trafalgar Junior School Readers and Writers Club

 
Classics in Short No.79: When We Were Very Young

Brian Alderson on A A Milne’s When We Were Very Young
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The Dunderheads

Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by David Roberts
(Walker Books Ltd)
56pp, 978-1406322552, RRP £11.99, Hardcover
5-8 Infant/Junior
Buy "The Dunderheads" on Amazon

Miss Breakbone calls the children in her class ‘Dunderheads’. That is her first mistake. She is a truly vile teacher, a brilliantly crafted extreme reminiscent of Gerald Scarfe’s worst. She then confiscates something truly precious and dares the class to think of getting it back. Another mistake. The skills of the various Dunderheads gathered together result in a well planned and executed retrieval of the confiscated property from under Miss Breakbone’s nose.

This longer picture book story with its laconic first person narration and dynamic action-packed illustrations will find a home on the book shelves of junior readers. It’s great to see a truly awful teacher as a villain and a resourceful bunch of kids getting one over her. The action in the story is broken into steps that resemble sequences in classic caper films. And the way the team tackle the security camera – it’s worth reading for this alone.

Reviewer: 
Huw Thomas
3

All Children's Book Reviews in BfK No. 180

  • Under 5s
  • Ages 5-8
  • Ages 8-10
  • Ages 10-14
  • Ages 14+
  • Books About Children's Books

Under 5s

  • Winnie’s Amazing Pumpkin
    Valerie Thomas
    5

  • Morris the Mankiest Monster
    Giles Andreae
    5

  • Aliens Love Underpants
    Claire Freedman
    5

  • The Dolls’ House Fairy
    Jane Ray
    5

  • Goldilocks and the Three Bears
    Emma Chichester Clark
    5

  • Sleepy or Not, Mr Croc?
    Jo Lodge
    4

  • Cross Crocodile
    Mwenye Hadithi
    4

  • Red Riding Hood: A Pop-Up Book
    Louise Rowe
    4

  • Food Chain
    M P Robertson
    3

Ages 5-8

  • Tabby McTat
    Julia Donaldson
    5

  • Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency
    Cressida Cowell
    5

  • Red Ted and the Lost Things
    Michael Rosen
    5

  • Ella Bella Ballerina and Cinderella
    James Mayhew
    4

  • Christopher Nibble
    Charlotte Middleton
    4

  • Mrs Cockle’s Cat
    Philippa Pearce
    4

  • The Flight of the Mermaid
    Gita Wolf
    Sirish Rao
    3

  • The Dunderheads
    Paul Fleischman
    3

  • Valentine’s Day
    Berlie Doherty
    3

  • Purple Class and the Half-Eaten Sweater
    Sean Taylor
    3

  • Number Rhymes: Tens and Teens
    Opal Dunn
    2

  • Choking Wolf ¦ Melting Snowman ¦ Injured Spider
    Dosh Archer
    0

Ages 8-10

  • Shapeshifters: Tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
    5

  • Madame Pamplemousse and the Time-Travelling Café
    Rupert Kingfisher
    5

  • The Willoughbys
    Lois Lowry
    5

  • New and Collected Poems for Children
    Carol Ann Duffy
    5

  • The Squirrel’s Birthday and Other Parties ¦ Letters to Anyone and Everyone

    Toon Tellegen
    4

  • The Poison Garden
    Sarah Singleton
    4

  • Charlie Bone and the Red Knight
    Jenny Nimmo
    4

  • How Things Work
    Conrad Mason
    4

  • The Comic Strip History of Space
    Sally Kindberg
    Tracey Turner
    4

  • Fabulous Bridges
    Ian Graham
    4

  • Bodies ¦ Creepy-Crawlies ¦ Dinosaurs ¦ Egyptians
    Philip Ardagh
    4

  • Midsummer Knight
    Gregory Rogers
    3

  • Mr Stink
    David Walliams
    3

  • Wolven
    Di Toft
    3

  • The New Children’s Encyclopedia
    Author and Illustrator Unknown
    2

Ages 10-14

  • Beyond the Barricade ¦ Chalkline
    Deborah Ellis
    5

  • The Secrets of Codes
    Paul Lunde
    5

  • Free? Stories Celebrating Human Rights
    4

  • Desperate Measures
    Laura Summers
    4

  • No Such Thing as Dragons
    Philip Reeve
    4

  • The Crowfield Curse
    Pat Walsh
    4

  • Running Wild
    Michael Morpurgo
    4

  • Hush, Hush
    Becca Fitzpatrick
    4

  • The Credit Crunch
    Colin Hynson
    4

  • Out of Iraq: Refugees’ Stories in Words, Paintings and Music
    Sybella Wilkes
    4

  • Aids ¦ Child Labour ¦ Hunger ¦ Poverty ¦ Violence ¦ War
    Otto James
    4

  • The Spitting Cobra
    Gill Harvey
    3

  • What to do About Holly
    Joan Lingard
    3

  • Under the Weather: Stories About Climate Change
    3

  • Where the Streets Had a Name
    Randa Abdel-Fattah
    3

  • The Death Defying Pepper Roux
    Geraldine McCaughrean
    3

  • Tom Fletcher and the Three Wise Men
    Sarah Matthias
    3

  • Troubadour
    Mary Hoffman
    3

  • The Glittering Eye
    L J Adlington
    3

  • Scat
    Carl Hiaasen
    3

  • Sustainable Cities
    Angela Royston
    3

  • Wow! Earth ¦ Wow! Animal
    John Woodward
    3

Ages 14+

  • The Bride’s Farewell
    Meg Rosoff
    5

  • Girls to Total Goddesses
    Sue Limb
    4

  • Shiver
    Maggie Stiefvater
    4

  • Skinned
    Robin Wasserman
    3

Books About Children's Books

  • The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
    5

  • 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
    3

BfK News

Blue Peter Book Award Winners Announced 2010

Frozen in TimeFrozen in Time by Ali Sparkes is the winner of this year’s Blue Peter Book Awards. The results were announced on a special episode of Blue Peter broadcast 3 March on BBC One in honour of World Book Day.

read more...
Do! wins 2010 Bologna Ragazzi New Horizons Award

Do! coverTara Books, the independent publisher from Chennai, south India, has won the 2010 Bologna Ragazzi Award for the handmade children's title, Do!

The award, which will be presented at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in March, is designed to acknowledge publishing houses from the Arab countries, Latin America, Asia and Africa that show great innovative talent.

read more...
The Red House Children's Book Award 2010 Shortlist announced

Red House Children's Book Award 2010

Ten books are on the short-list for this year's Red House Children's Book Award, announced today, Monday 22nd February.

read more...
Katie Davies wins Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize 2010

Kate Davies wins Waterstone's Children's Book prize

Debut author Katie Davies has won the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize 2010 for The Great Hamster Massacre (Simon and Schuster), a tale of a girl’s relentless quest for a pet hamster.

read more...
Every primary pupil deserves a school library, says new Charter

The School Library Association (SLA) this month launches a new Primary School Library Charter arguing that investment in school libraries must start early, and quoting the UK Convention on the Rights of the Child to make its case.  Articles 13 of the Convention (‘freedom to see, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers’) and 17 (‘encourage the . . . dissemination of children’s books’) imply effective library provision, the SLA states.

read more...
Frances Lincoln buys Barn Owl Books - January 2010

Frances Lincoln have announced their acquisition of Barn Owl Books.

Ann Jungman, a popular author, started Barn Owl Books in 1999, carefully selecting out–of-print titles remembered as good reads by teachers, parents and grandparents alike, bringing the books back into print for a new generation of readers. She has been doing this, almost single-handed, ever since. Frances Lincoln have been Barn Owl’s distributors from the start.

read more...
Write Away Annual Conference May 2010

Write Away Annual Conference May 2010

READ, PLAY, THINK, CREATE: generating delight in learning

This conference for teachers and librarians will provide:

read more...
The Tower Hamlets Book Award 2009

Winner:

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES

by Jeff Kinney, Puffin

The award is aimed at children aged 9 to 12 and the winning title is chosen by children in the borough. The award is now in its third year, with the selection and judging process running from March through to December.

read more...
Winners of Royal Mail 2009 Awards for Scottish Children’s Books

John Fardell, Lari Don and Keith Gray have been named as this year’s winners for the 2009 Royal Mail Awards, Scotland’s largest children’s Book Prize which is voted for exclusively by Scottish children themselves.

read more...
The 2009 Eleanor Farjeon Award

Sponsored by the Eleanor Farjeon estate.

was won by Moira Arthur who received her award on Tuesday 17th November 2009.

www.childrensbookcircle.org.uk

read more...
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