Issue No. 156 - January 2006
This issue’s cover illustration is from Graham Marks’ Tokyo.
Graham Marks is interviewed by Julia Eccleshare .
Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for their help with this January cover.
Articles In This Issue
In a major U-turn, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has ordered that in future all children should start to learn to read with a course in synthetic phonics – in effect tearing up the literacy strategy implemented after 1997 which incorporated a variety of methods. Many teachers have expressed concern that Kelly is being too prescriptive. Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, commented: ‘The last thing teachers want is a massive upheaval as a result of the promotion of a single fashionable technique.’
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The news that a recently commissioned portrait of J K Rowling by Stuart Pearson Wright (whose previous subjects include Prince Philip, John Hurt and Michael Gambon) is now on display at the National Portrait Gallery will no doubt inspire many young Harry Potter fans to visit this 'national pantheon'. For some it will undoubtedly be their first experience of portraiture. 'Portraiture is one of the grandest and greatest genres of painting and children should be given it in wholly undiluted form,' says Brian Sewell. But how wholly undiluted is Pearson Wright's portrait of Rowling? Brian Sewell discusses.
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Following on from Noughts & Crosses and Knife Edge , Checkmate concludes Malorie Blackman’s acclaimed ‘Noughts & Crosses’ trilogy set in a fictional society split along racial lines in which everyday reality is subverted, with the black Crosses on top and the white Noughts at the bottom. The trilogy represents a more complex, demanding and hard hitting departure in Blackman’s writing. How successful is it? Errol Lloyd discusses.
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Last month Education Secretary Ruth Kelly announced that she had accepted the recommendations of a review by Jim Rose (a former director of Ofsted) which found that children learn to read best through synthetic phonics. Synthetic phonics are therefore to be the only system used to teach the basics of reading, unlike the range of methods employed at present. Henrietta Dombey explains the issues.
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From the 1960s the idea of a centre for the study of children’s literature has been mooted. With the opening of Seven Stories in Newcastle-upon-Tyne the dream has finally become a reality. How did it come about? And what does it offer? Brian Alderson , a member of the Centre’s Collection Committee, explains.
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Graham Marks interviewed by Julia Eccleshare
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Children’s Poetry Bookshelf
Poetry Book Society
Fourth Floor
2 Tavistock Place
London WC1H 9RA
info@childrenspoetrybookshelf.co.uk
www.childrenspoetrybookshelf.co.uk
Hal is now nearly five and is being taught to read. While debate about different methods continues to rage, how is Hal faring? His father, psychodynamic counsellor Roger Mills, explains.
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Kevin Brooks on a book that’s so good it makes you groan…
MORE »Chosen by Year 7 to Year 11 (11-15 year-old) pupils from Maidenhill School, Gloucestershire. Thanks to Vicki Walker, Librarian.
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Floccinaucinihilipilification...welcome to the world of Mary Poppins
MORE »Reviews In This Issue
A natural at almost everything (reading, swimming, table tennis, Japanese, Maths), Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent has ‘frightfully, frightfully rich’ parents with houses in London, New York and Milan.
When 12-year-old Mosca Mye burns down her uncle’s mill (accidentally or on purpose?), it is time for her to leave the village of Clough and seek her fortune with storyteller, poet and petty crook Eponymous Clent. On their arrival in the capital, Mandelion, where political intrigue is rife, the pair become spies but are they on the same side? And is anything as it seems in this ‘Fractured Realm’?
14-year-old Mary lost her mother to AIDS last year, and her father to apathy four years before that. She lives with her cousins – also AIDS orphans – in barely sufficient housing in a South African township.
This is an altogether attractive alphabet of animals and their young together with their initial letters, illustrated in bold blobs of acrylic colour on bright and framed backgrounds with an abundance of pattern worked onto and into the animals, letters and borders.
This is the second book about the amadans, small fairy-like creatures who travel from another world via the SuperHighway to emerge into our world through computer screens. To fully understand this sequel, I recommend reading the first volume – there’s quite a lot of assumed knowledge here.
This volume is half a book, to be followed by the ‘sequel’, Arthur and the Forbidden City. Usually the first book in a two-part story or a trilogy is complete in itself, regardless of events to come. Not so here. Arthur and the Minimoys breaks off abruptly in mid-story with the words ‘To be continued...’ and nothing even provisionally resolved. This is bad practice, and we must hope it does not catch on.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
First day at new school is a plot well mined by children’s writers, so credit to Priestley who brings a fresh eye to the situation. Joe and family have moved areas, and whereas the promise of new bike, new car and new house had originally thrilled Joe, the reality of new house and new school dawn rather differently in reality. Settling in to the playground takes a decidedly bizarre turn when Billy, the only other new boy on the block, sidles up and whispers: ‘It’s simple enough. I’m a wizard and I’ve been turned into a boy by a witch. What’s the matter with you?’
The single word titles are a dead giveaway for the easy read, pared down contents and language difficulty of the books. These are contemporary tales aiming to encourage interest and solo reading among reluctant teens. The authors’ notes at the onset give insight into where the story originated and act as a useful motivator to encourage readers to become involved and started. As far as the black and white illustrations go, I liked them, but you never know how older kids will react.
A latter-day Gray’s Anatomy for lay readers, this high-tech tour around the body is fronted by Lord Winston, now a household name for his TV series, in addition to his pioneering work in the field of human fertility.
This author/illustrator has a distinctive art style, using colour and image boldly and imaginatively. Bill is so bored he can’t even finish his bonio. Bored, bored, bored. Unlike his mistress, Mrs Pickle, who likes to keep busy all day.
Benny didn’t like vegetables. He liked burgers, so much so that his Mum warned him he may turn into a burger one day. We watch the illustrations as he is transformed into a juicy burger. He attracts numerous dogs, hounding him across a double spread, all howling and hollering as his Mum yells, ‘Run, Benny!’ He thinks he may hide safely in a field of cows, but no, he is off at a trot again, with a herd of cows, a pack of dogs, and soon a gang of hungry boys chasing him.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
This may look like a mystery novel, but as several characters in this handsomely produced book might say, things are not always what they seem. Chasing Vermeer is about thinking, about looking and seeing, about art history (there’s a colour print of a Vermeer tipped in as a frontispiece); it’s also about mathematical puzzles, especially pentominoes (no problem – there’s a page of diagrams and a nifty bookmark to help you out); and yes, it is indeed a mystery about hunting for a stolen masterpiece, packed with clues and coded messages. Then there are the frogs – dozens on the endpapers, one hiding beneath that frontispiece and several hopping up in the text. For good measure, Helquist – in similar mode to his Lemony Snicket illustrations – has included a further puzzle within his pictures.
A charming autobiography by an endearing American white mouse, who is bought, sold, traded by good children, bad children and some in between. Christopher Mouse’s episodic adventures also involve escaping through a museum on the way, ultimately, to a happy home. He becomes a budding poet too.
Davie is growing up in the north-east town of Felling during the 1960s and, amongst other pressures, the bully, Mouldy, has to be resisted and there’s the new boy, Stephen, who persuades Davie and his friend that he can help.
The publisher Barrington Stoke, set up in 1997 to produce books exclusively for ‘dyslexic, reluctant, disenchanted and under-confident readers’, has until now concentrated on fiction. This new series combines fact with fiction though the emphasis is clearly on hooking the reader with an action-packed story.
11-year-old Dawn Buckle is recruited by secret intelligence organisation S.H.H. (Strictly Hush-Hush) to become a spy. She joins P.S.S.T (Pursuit of Scheming Spies and Traitors) and embarks on a top-secret undercover mission to infiltrate the sleepy village of Cherry Bentley and discover the whereabouts of missing spy, Angela Bradshaw.
The publisher Barrington Stoke, set up in 1997 to produce books exclusively for ‘dyslexic, reluctant, disenchanted and under-confident readers’, has until now concentrated on fiction. This new series combines fact with fiction though the emphasis is clearly on hooking the reader with an action-packed story.
This is a morality tale with a light touch, and teaches its fallible young hero, Elijah (and the reader) ‘what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive’. It is 1894, a time of declining faith and emergent science. Elijah, a bright schoolboy, is fascinated by electricity and worships Faraday and Hertz rather than God. His misfortune is to be the son of an Elder of the Congregation of Mount Horeb, and the Horebites have very different beliefs and priorities, which centre upon listening devoutly for the ‘still small voice’ of God. When Elijah’s secret electrical experiments in the chapel are discovered, he cleverly but unwisely saves his skin by persuading the Elders that electricity can be a telepathic conveyor of the still small voice Itself. The experiments generated by this fraud lead Elijah into many troubles.
Another beautiful book by this well-loved author and illustrator in which we are introduced, along with Elmer and his cousin Wilbur, to a completely pink elephant called Rose. Rose needs help to find her way back to her herd and Grandpa Eldo asks Elmer and Wilbur to follow tracks to locate them. Before they meet Rose, the two cousins are watching a herd of grey elephants:
Anybody who can remember the first appearance in 1968 of Jan Pienkowski’s illustrations for the late Joan Aiken’s folk and fairy tale collections (A Necklace of Raindrops and The Kingdom Under the Sea) can relive the startling visual splendour of those beautiful books in this compilation of four classics from Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. The gentler Perrault version of Cinderella is selected, in which the sisters are not only allowed to keep their eyeballs (pecked out by birds in other versions) but are also fully forgiven. The Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Hansel and Gretel are taken from Grimm ‘with all the grizzly details left in’.
This artist/author is one of a growing number of graduates of British art schools from the Far East. Kanako Usui’s first book successfully combines Japanese graphic traditions with English nonsense, and tells of the eventful journey of Mr Wani the crocodile as he hurries to a party in town. The various encounters along the way make this an entertaining version of a familiar formula. A generous landscape format gives us a dynamic left to right pull and the sheer vigour and bold execution of the images lift this book above the norm. How good it is to see colour that is rich and satisfying without being garish or primary, and typography that complements the simple graphic strength of the pictures.
Strange events concerning bears, dragons and a fire star with mysterious powers are the ingredients of the third book in d’Lacey’s series. When author David Rain goes to the Arctic to write a book, the ‘real’ world and the world of his novel begin to intersect. And this is only the beginning of a series of other very strange occurrences which eventually all link to each other.
Three more titles in this expanding series for teenagers who require shortish, quick reads and only a moderate level of language difficulty. The presentation of this series deserves mention; it is stylish and quality work.
Flush is an old-fashioned adventure story, dressed in youthful American idiom; given the speed at which language crosses the Atlantic, the style should readily attract young British readers.
The plot is old-fashioned in that it’s one of those ‘What chance does a criminal stand against smart young kids?’ stories. The crime may be the contemporary one of environmental vandalism (releasing raw sewage into the waters of the Florida Keys) but the greedy baddie, Dusty Muleman, is timeless. His foreign ‘heavy’, Luno, and his bullying son, Jasper Jr and his sidekick, Bull, are all out of Central Casting too. For our heroes, 12-year-old Noah and his feisty younger sister, Abbey (they’re really good friends, which makes a refreshing change) – and for Mom too – Dad is The Problem. He may be the best fishing guide in the Keys, but his idealism and impulsiveness lead him into trouble; into jail, as a matter of fact, when he knocks some holes in Dusty’s casino boat (the source of the sewage) and sends Coral Queen to the bottom.
The squeamish among you may rest assured – there is nothing too grisly here to spoil your lunch. Not that there is any skirting of blood and gore at the scene of the crime. It is rather that Platt examines the subject in such painstaking detail that you find yourself becoming fascinated by the marvels of this branch of scientific detective work, both in the field collecting evidence and back at the laboratory analysing it.
Framed is a welcome addition to the great tradition of British comedy that deals in the impact of life-changing events on small communities. The house and garage owned by Dylan’s family is at the far end of Manod, a village in North Wales so small and anonymous there is no sign from the A496.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
Twins James and Amanda are woken from their sleep by a rap-rap at their attic window. There, wanting to come in, is a young and dishevelled angel. She’s wearing a white cotton dress, and from her shoulders is a pair of long wings, one of which is broken.
The first in the ‘Harry the Poisonous Centipede’ series won the 1996 Smarties Silver Medal. In this third and wildest bug adventure, Harry and his best friend George crawl into a straight-up-hard-thing full of yellow-curves (a crate of bananas) which is carried far from their home across the no-end puddle (sea). They find themselves facing all the terrors and dangers of a big city. They must negotiate a strange treeless cold desert, a Nest of Hoo-Mins, lots of noise-hurt and terrifying hairy-yowlers. (Work those out for yourselves!)
Better known as an illustrator, Snow has written an amiable, at times surreal story accompanied by hundreds of fantastic black ink drawings, executed in a style half way between Mervyn Peake and Edward Gorey.
Hieronymus takes us along on his flight of fancy to meet his imaginary menagerie: there’s slimy Slurp the slugapotamus, Gobbler the sabre-toothed rhino-toad, Cuddles the porcupython, not to mention Stinker the bog hog. Then there’s Oojamaflip the whatchamacallit; can you imagine anything worse than this conglomeration? Well, Hieronymus knows something, it’s his fiendish little brother; but he’s real and lots more fun too.
Jez Alborough’s ‘Duck’ stories seem to get better and better. This latest has the four pals off to the park for a game of bat and ball. Goat is pitcher and Duck – of course – bats first. His opening swipe sends the ball soaring up into a tree. What to do? A stick? suggests Frog. Hot-headed Duck, as usual, knows best: and inevitably it’s not long before the bat, and glove too, are stuck. With nothing left to throw, Frog’s second plan, an animal tower, could just be the solution. And it is, but not quite as planned.
A rhyming narrative and illustrations created using appliqué techniques take young children back to the time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The rhyming couplets are not subtle and of the ‘fun’ ‘run’ and ‘him’ ‘swim’ type. But I know from experience that young children like the sort of verses they can easily join in with, and here the pictures communicate some more subtle information. And what fabulous, ingenious pictures they are! Shiny buttons and sequins pattern the dinosaurs’ backs, crests and tails and stand out against the mat surfaces of colourful felts. Silky fringes make luscious looking leaves, lace makes exotic flower stems and butterfly wings, and satin braids become textured, prehistoric tree trunks. Nursery and Reception class teachers could use all this for inspiration towards the children’s own appliqué frieze.
We all sometimes wish we were someone else, and in this delightful little book, cat wants to be a dog. Dogs can do exciting things like playing in the park; they can howl at the moon or chase robbers. But the wise little girl convinces kitty that cats are able to do all sorts of things that dogs can’t, like climb trees and catch mice.
Messenger is one of our finest book artists. His rather meagre output to date is perhaps explained by the astonishing density of his technique which suggests a year or two spent on each illustration. Imagine is an exquisite production.
This novel opens with the story of a mermaid and a tragic relationship with a human creating the tension of the two worlds to be explored here. Sapphy and Conor lose their father in a presumed drowning but as they begin to be drawn into a magical world within the sea and experience Ingo, the hope remains that their father is still alive.
The Innocent’s Story asks a lot of its reader. There’s no promise of an easy ride in a book which begins, ‘OK. This is what I think happened: I got blown up. Boom boom, explosion, Cassina Dixon, aged thirteen, is blasted limb from limb.’ A reader has to work with a narrator who indeed seems to be dead, a ‘para-spirit’, finding lodging within fissures in living creatures’ brains, beginning with the woman laying out the body of Cassina’s younger sister Aelfin in the funeral parlour, for she too is the victim of a terrorist bomb. The para-spirit moves on to her grieving father, then to a racist hooligan, the brain of the family dog, her desolate mother and, eventually, to Ahim, the suicide bomber himself who, it seems, cannot be physically killed.
This account of Jane Austen’s life is written in a friendly, conversational style, easy to read and informative. It gives a digestible amount of detail of life at the end of the eighteenth century, explaining aspects of society and class, parenting and schooling.
Is there anything else left for Wynton Marsalis to excel at? The (arguably) finest jazz trumpeter, bandleader, music-ambassador and dynasty-daddy has now turned his hand to poetic authorship. Yes, this is a book of what Nigel Molesworth would call ‘peoms’. Polymath Wynton takes 26 leading jazz musicians, dexterously places them in alphabetical order (sometimes he cheats a bit, X for BiX Beiderbecke, for example) and does a poem for each of them. Nice idea and it should be enough for most of us, but for Marsalis – oh no. Ever the sophisticat, he casts each offering in a different verse-form, so Gerry Mulligan gets limericks, Sonny Rollins a rondeau, Beiderbecke a ballad, Parker a (flavour of the month) pantoum and Thelonious Monk a haiku. Nice idea, and it should be enough for most of us, but for Marsalis, oh no. He adds to each ode, sonnet or tanka an array of agonisingly agile but annoying alliteration. Thus the poet gives himself flight after flight of fancy hurdles to jump. And, at many, he comes a crashing cropper, so that even the avidest jazzer (and yes, folks, I am that man) cries ‘Hold, enough!’ before reaching I (Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, better known to most of us as Art Blakey and inventor of ‘segs’). Only Monk’s haiku and Bix’s ballad seem well matched to their subjects. The rest is artful but not, alas, artistic. Oh, McGonagall, thou shouldst be living at this hour!
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
Books can help children get used to the changes which are inevitable with the arrival of a new baby in the family. Tom watches how busy Mum becomes looking after their new arrival – and he gets frustrated and angry at having to wait to go to the park or have a story read. Dad finds him sulking in the baby’s room.
Before we begin the story, we learn that Kidogo in Kiswahili means little. And the illustrations tell us that Kidogo is a little elephant. This is a tale of growing up, but also it is about accepting one’s position in the family.
The publisher Barrington Stoke, set up in 1997 to produce books exclusively for ‘dyslexic, reluctant, disenchanted and under-confident readers’, has until now concentrated on fiction. This new series combines fact with fiction though the emphasis is clearly on hooking the reader with an action-packed story.
This is the second book featuring these characters, and it doesn’t disappoint. The setting for this short tale is a holiday camp for children with special needs and their siblings: Bobby has Down’s syndrome and is devoted to football, his sister is Charlton, their names a reflection of an equally football-mad father. Events are seen through Charlton’s eyes, some recounted in letters home to the family, the sibling relationship beautifully drawn as Charlton helps Bobby to socialise and participate in camp activities. Part of Bobby’s growing confidence is his quiet friendship with Paul, a naturally withdrawn child who only comes out of his shell when playing with Bobby. The adults in the story stay endlessly supportive in the background.
This is an interactive split page book which enables the young reader to create new wacky fairy tales from classic stories and characters. Children love mixing up stories and this book is the perfect vehicle for exploring narrative construction but more importantly it’s just good fun.
Arabel’s Raven was the first Aiken/Blake collaboration about Arabel and her pet raven Mortimer; this title was originally published by BBC publications in 1979. More than a quarter of a century later, both narrative and illustration remain engagingly fresh; for Aiken and Blake, not a word or a stroke of the pencil is wasted. The place is Rainwater Crescent, north London, and Arabel Jones and Mortimer are sitting on the bedroom window-sill ‘which was a very wide and comfortable one, with plenty of room for them both, and a cushion as well’. In the community garden opposite they watch an excavator creating a very deep hole and are naturally drawn to the action. Once in the garden, their encounters with Sandy, who is training for the circus, are the subject of much delight and plenty of ‘Kaaarking’ from Mortimer. But what the raven really has his eye fixed upon is driving the gardener’s wonderful motor mower, LawnSabre. In this he finally succeeds, with extraordinary consequences as King Arthur’s sword Excalibur emerges fantastically from the very deep hole.
In common, I suspect, with many other mothers, I have something of a soft spot for Mrs Large, elephant mum, in her endless quest for a bit of ‘me time’. This latest volume in a fine series has Mrs Large retreating unwell to bed, leaving Mr L in charge of the unruly brood. Of course, their endearing willingness to do all the chores while she has a nice sleep results in ‘an astonishing amount of noise blasting up through the floorboards’, luckily ‘mostly happy noises’. By the end Mrs L has hardly had a minute’s peace while the family has collapsed exhausted onto her bed.
Elin’s first encounter with death – that of a teenage friend – provokes a personal crisis. Like all teenagers, she starts to question what life is all about. Her answer? Marriage. She creates and follows her own Marriage GCSE course (modules include Men, DIY and Women of Maturity), the culmination to be marriage on her sixteenth birthday.
The single word titles are a dead giveaway for the easy read, pared down contents and language difficulty of the books. These are contemporary tales aiming to encourage interest and solo reading among reluctant teens. The authors’ notes at the onset give insight into where the story originated and act as a useful motivator to encourage readers to become involved and started. As far as the black and white illustrations go, I liked them, but you never know how older kids will react.
Myron lives in an apartment block with his impatient mother amongst the humble streets of what looks like a New York suburb. One day, on the way to the store to buy some milk, he is accosted by Goldilocks. She sells him an immense cow, purchased from a ‘dopey boy’ named Jack for a pack of beans, that she can’t fit into her car alongside her three bears. The rest of the story in this 40-page picture book describes the mildly amusing consequences.
The everyday doings recounted to us here by the French schoolboy Nicholas hardly measure up to the convoluted entanglements in which the English William Brown was prone to find himself but the two heroes are alike in their fixed incomprehension of the behaviour of adults and their devotion to their own kind. Classroom friends – the ones you mock, the ones you fight, the ones who are OK for a prank or two – are denizens of the real world. Teachers? Parents? What planet do they come from?
This is a perfect little concept book for children of about three years. Any nursery teacher putting across the notion of ‘opposites’ simply could not do better than show it to the children. Small fingers will manage the robust push and pull tabs.
The six stories in this little book, newly collected from previously published work, reflect Crossley-Holland’s lifelong interest in legend and folktale, drawing on stories handed down orally over generations in Scotland, Wales and East Anglia.
Kitamura’s latest offering is a great example of his gentle, highly individual humour. Pablo the elephant seems to be suffering from a nasty case of artist’s block in advance of the forthcoming Hoof Lane Art Club exhibition.
Ensuring that her readers are gripped from the opening pages, Morgan encases a story of family tragedy and teenage anxiety within a tautly constructed thriller. We are confronted by the mystery of an old woman who seems to be motivated by more than altruism in her role as a prison visitor; in counterpoint, doubts are raised about the repentance for some hinted at terrible deed by the prisoner she visits.
Published 15 years ago in Nix’s native Australia, The Ragwitch is a stand-alone fantasy for older readers. It is perhaps telling that it is only published now in the UK, after he has achieved success and reputation with the Old Kingdom series (Sabriel etc). The Ragwitch has your classic elements of fantasy – magic, good against evil, children going to other lands, children finding out about themselves from wise people along the way – but it doesn’t all hang together and feels muddled. Julia finds a ragdoll in a crow’s nest and becomes literally possessed by it so that she is inside the mind and body of this bewitched doll that is actually the evil ‘Ragwitch’. The Ragwitch needs Julia to come back and finish off her battles in her land. Her brother follows Julia to this land in order to save her. They then each have their own adventures against evil, meeting wise and good people along the way, culminating in the Ragwitch being overwhelmed and the good witch who she once was getting her mind and body back.
The single word titles are a dead giveaway for the easy read, pared down contents and language difficulty of the books. These are contemporary tales aiming to encourage interest and solo reading among reluctant teens. The authors’ notes at the onset give insight into where the story originated and act as a useful motivator to encourage readers to become involved and started. As far as the black and white illustrations go, I liked them, but you never know how older kids will react.
Death Eric, the world’s foremost feedback metal band, are led by ex-plumber’s-mate-from-Glossop Eric Thrashmettle on his legendary guitar, Rabid Dingo with Fingers Trubshaw on bass and Kenyatta McClatter battering away at the drums. They’re in trouble – cursed, thinks Eric, by a raven who perched on the mike just as they closed Part One at the Chickenstock Festival with their triple platinum smash-hit, ‘Pig Train’.
This long novel has a plentiful ancestry in modern children’s literature. It is another struggle between supernatural forces of good and evil, the light and the dark, complete with shape-shifters, perilous journeys through caves, dark towers, and a human child holding the balance between defeat and victory. Moreover, everything takes place on an island, and reaches its climax at a village festival with origins lost in time. We have been here before.
There is little I can say to recommend Oliver’s first book as both author and illustrator. The theme of a toy rejected by the factory because he is not perfect is familiar and the images that Oliver uses to introduce the factory and Scrap, his reject robot dog, bring nothing new to it.
Here’s an anthology which captures the mood of our times and the 21st-century girl. There are poems about basketball, dancing, arguments and love. There are some old favourites from Hilaire Belloc, Ogden Nash, Carl Sandburg and Delmore Schwartz alongside some new names like Jane Dang, who speaks of the many facets of the name of a Vietnamese girl and Grace Butcher who writes beautifully about basketball and track shoes which ‘strike sparks from stones’. The poems reflect our diverse and energetic culture with a wide variety of poets, themes and subjects. We go from Allan Ahlberg and his Betsy Street Booters football team to Valerie Bloom’s ‘likkle girl’ in ‘Who Dat Girl?’: ‘Who dat wide-eye likkle girl/Staring out at me?/Wid her hair in beads an’ braids/An’ skin like ebony?’
Three more titles in this expanding series for teenagers who require shortish, quick reads and only a moderate level of language difficulty. The presentation of this series deserves mention; it is stylish and quality work.
The single word titles are a dead giveaway for the easy read, pared down contents and language difficulty of the books. These are contemporary tales aiming to encourage interest and solo reading among reluctant teens. The authors’ notes at the onset give insight into where the story originated and act as a useful motivator to encourage readers to become involved and started. As far as the black and white illustrations go, I liked them, but you never know how older kids will react.
The publisher Barrington Stoke, set up in 1997 to produce books exclusively for ‘dyslexic, reluctant, disenchanted and under-confident readers’, has until now concentrated on fiction. This new series combines fact with fiction though the emphasis is clearly on hooking the reader with an action-packed story.
The wonderful Wolf Brother was unputdownable with its strong characters (including the wolf) and vivid ancient world setting, its rich detail and the tremendous excitement of the hunt and being hunted.
The publisher Barrington Stoke, set up in 1997 to produce books exclusively for ‘dyslexic, reluctant, disenchanted and under-confident readers’, has until now concentrated on fiction. This new series combines fact with fiction though the emphasis is clearly on hooking the reader with an action-packed story.
Hard to judge a reading series by one book alone, but this title has all the right ingredients and even a recipe. Simple text is complemented by quirky cartoon-like artwork, while speech bubbles inject humour and help the story along.
Three interlocking strands form this compelling story: Nela, who is researching the past, finds a stone which enables her to catch brief but intense glimpses of the life of her people long ago; in an intermediate time Jerat and his family seek peace after the death of their old Chief; and far in the past is the mythology that has led to the current way of life of their peoples. Gradually we become aware of the parallels between the lives of Nela and Jerat, both at the pivotal age of 16 and both struggling to break the mould by breaking the conventions of their respective times. The mythological strand is woven into both stories, its impact felt most strongly by Jerat, but still evident in Nela’s time.
Everyone in the city of Multiplicity admires the flamboyant Hero Squad for its dashing deeds against the villainous Dr D Void. Everyone, that is, except Ben, whose dad happens to be the Squad’s leader.
Translated from the German, and atmospherically set in Berlin over a snowy and icy Christmas and New Year, this novel is a deft combination of supernatural spinechiller and realistic story of teenage emotions and relationships. The opening is unforgettably spooky and nightmarish. 16-year-old Alissa regularly visits her father’s grave at Christmas, aided and abetted by her best friend Evelin. This time the visit coincides with unusual cold and heavy snow. Searching for the grave, Alissa falls into a hole from which a passage leads into a mausoleum crypt, where she finds the coffined body of a child with a strange plant growing from its flesh. Nothing thereafter quite rivals the original creepiness of this scene, but the suspense and mystery that flow from it are unrelenting. Alongside a supernatural mystery the novel also traces Alissa’s relationship with her former boy friend Simon, who is not creepy but simply a creep. Through his actions the novel conveys to great effect the malign psychology of a stalker and the ordeal of being stalked. Natural and supernatural intertwine compellingly in this winter mystery, which Alissa survives at great cost.
Williams’s introduction to the world of inventors is a treat. Her familiar comic strip narratives may not provide the mechanics of an invention like the James Watt cylinder with any clarity, but she more than makes up for this with the wit, drama and incidental social history in her pictures.
What do you do if your new tractor gets stuck in a ditch crossing a stream? This energetic little book will explain how using the backhoe can get you out of trouble. Then the tractor has to go to the repair shop to have a wobbly wheel straightened. The dialogue is most effective and explains Ted’s thought processes as he solves the problem. Children will love pulling the tabs in this ingeniously engineered book and will learn how the tractor’s moving parts work. Some under-fives would enjoy the book, but I just wonder if their fingers would be dexterous enough to cope with the flaps without some help. I found a couple of them quite stiff and nearly pulled too hard on one occasion!
The publisher Barrington Stoke, set up in 1997 to produce books exclusively for ‘dyslexic, reluctant, disenchanted and under-confident readers’, has until now concentrated on fiction. This new series combines fact with fiction though the emphasis is clearly on hooking the reader with an action-packed story.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
Last September the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (with the support of the major faiths) formulated a strategy to reinvigorate RE which it sees as ‘educationally necessary’ and a ‘crucial’ weapon in the fight against an ignorance which allows extremists to flourish. A key feature of its strategy is the development of proper RE tuition at foundation age.
After a row with his dad on his fourteenth birthday, Stevie stomps out of a Devon guesthouse only to come face to face with a horribly disfigured old man. The stranger has no fingers or toes, and disappears down a narrow alleyway leaving a broken bell behind, which Stevie picks up and takes with him. That night Stevie can’t breathe, his skin erupts into gruesome sores and his terrifying medieval adventure begins.
Billy (who seems to be about four) ‘can be very difficult to please’, his response to most things, however splendid, being ‘Whatever’. His dad’s attempts to engage him with ‘the curliest trumpet’, ‘the bounciest castle’ and so on elicit the well-worn teenage response. Until, that is, he is introduced to ‘the hungriest tiger’, which swallows him up. His father is seen leading the tiger off over the last few pages, Billy protesting from inside. ‘Whatever’ is his dad’s response…
Rowe has produced a whole series of Whose books. Whose tail? Whose baby? Whose ears? Whose feet? and even Whose poo? In each book a flap hides the body of an animal. All that protrudes is the body part named in the title, such as the nose. We lift the flap and find out who owns the body part. The process is repeated with six different animals until the end of the book, where the final animal, without a flap, is a human child.
Rowe has produced a whole series of Whose books. Whose tail? Whose baby? Whose ears? Whose feet? and even Whose poo? In each book a flap hides the body of an animal. All that protrudes is the body part named in the title, such as the nose. We lift the flap and find out who owns the body part. The process is repeated with six different animals until the end of the book, where the final animal, without a flap, is a human child.
Pea and Pod Piglet are two skivvies, working flat out in the bowels of Castle Grimewold’s kitchen. Upstairs, Baron de Mugwort greedily awaits the arrival of his birthday cake. Sly Ratty Ragworm plots and schemes, getting Pea and Pod into trouble and causing The Cake to be burnt to a cinder. Expletives bounce across the pages as we watch the piglets’ fresh attempts to produce this cake, by magic. But the Zany Zit Spell produces horrible, green, exploding boils which erupt all over Mrs Slobbersnout’s (the cook’s) head. It certainly seems that rotting ‘in the deepest, darkest, smelliest dungeon, for eve