Issue No. 162 - January 2007
COVER STORY
This issue’s cover illustration by Peter Bailey is from Alexander McCall Smith’s Akimbo and the Snakes.
Alexander McCall Smith is interviewed by Julia Eccleshare.
Thanks to Bloomsbury Children’s Books for their help with this January cover.
Articles In This Issue
What is going on at Arts Council England? Following a purge, five out of six of its art form directors have been ‘let go’, including Literature’s highly respected Gary McKeone. Bizarrely, the Chair of Arts Council England, Sir Christopher Frayling, doesn’t seem to have a clue. In an article in The Sunday Times* he revealed that he had been taken aback by the exodus: ‘I didn’t realise that the changes would be so dramatic. It might seem like a huge purge. Yes, the council is now a very tense and demoralised place,’ he said.
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In modern society childhood has become an ideal as well as an actuality. So while we go on hoping for the best for our young, there is always the almost inevitable realisation that in the real world what is available to children continues to fall short of what we truly desire for them. The latest critic to focus on this dilemma is Sue Palmer in her energetic but dispiriting book Toxic Childhood . Nicholas Tucker assesses her argument.
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There’s no job description for the Children’s Laureate. The Laureate is appointed for two years and is supposed to raise the profile of Children’s Literature, but can do it in whatever way she or he wants. The Laureate must agree to take on four specific official Laureate events each year, but the rest is up to her/him. The current post holder, Laureate Jacqueline Wilson , explains what she decided to do when she was appointed and describes what is involved.
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The ‘Horrid Henry’ series, written by Francesca Simon and illustrated by Tony Ross, is one of the UK’s bestselling series for 5-8 year olds. Over 5.5 million books have been sold to date and Henry, for all that he is unbelievably cheeky, totally naughty and utterly horrid, has been attributed with converting the most reluctant readers into enthusiastic ones. Janet Evans explains his appeal.
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Hal is now six and for storytime at home it has to be Roald Dahl. His father, psychodynamic counsellor Roger Mills , explains.
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The Bookseller ’s supplement ‘Books for All’ published in June 2006 detailed research into the need to improve the range and quality of books available to Britain’s minority ethnic children. This was also the rationale for the high profile conference, sponsored by Arts Council England, entitled ‘Diversity Matters’. Respected author Malorie Blackman, among other esteemed speakers, spoke of the need for children to ‘see themselves in a book’. And yet Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities were missing from the research and from the conference, says teacher Kate Evans .
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Valerie Bloom
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Alexander McCall Smith interviewed by Julia Eccleshare
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Part of their innovative In the Picture Project , Scope’s The Story So Far conference (held in London in October 2006) was designed to ‘reflect on the changing equality and inclusion agenda that the book industry is part of and to provide what we hope will be a refreshing and innovative insight into including disabled children’. Will publishers take up the challenge? Julia Eccleshare reports.
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I wish I’d written…
Mick Manning on a book that reveals the fairy tale powers of nature…
MORE »Chosen by Year 6 (10-11 year-old) pupils from St Christina’s School, North London.
Thanks to fr Rudolf Loewenstein, class teacher
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Issues with reviews
Dear Editor
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This dedicated website and resource founded by Patrick Vernon is an alphabetical listing of contemporary and historical figures from Benjamin Zephaniah to Mary Seacole to Olaudah Equiano to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Click on a name and picture/photograph and brief biography appear. An international listing is being planned and in ‘People’s Choice’ you can compile your own list of top ten Black Britons. An invaluable resource for schools, libraries and home research.
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‘I am translating fairy stories which in the time of Armageddon I suppose nobody will even read.’ – A pessimistic forecast by the author of...
MORE »Reviews In This Issue
From a single word, to a sentence, to a page, to a whole book, Henry the book eating boy’s appetite for books becomes insatiable and his brain smarter and smarter as the ingested information rushes to it. Until the day he begins to feel ill and can no longer digest the books he has eaten. But how else can he absorb them?
How can Ludlow Fitch trust anyone with parents like his? This debut novel gets off to a cracking start as Ludlow’s gin-soaked parents, desperate for money to buy drink, sell his teeth and hold him down for them to be extracted by the loathsome (and aptly named) Barton Gumbroot. As Barton begins to pull the first tooth, Ludlow, wild with rage and fear, manages to knock down his tormentors and escape.
The ‘wide sea’ of the title is a variety of places in this very satisfying read from one of our best, award-winning authors.
Arthur Hobhouse was one of the UK orphans set adrift after WWII; sent by boat to Australia and thence into the vast openness of the outback, where life was made intolerable and harsh by his vicious guardian, Piggy Bacon. His moving tale takes up the first two thirds of the novel leading to the building of his last boat, designed specifically for his daughter, 18-year-old Allie, in the years before he died.
Some five years after the publication of Peter Dickinson’s widely praised and Carnegie shortlisted The Ropemaker comes a sequel of equally epic proportion and intent. Fans of the earlier volume will continue to respond to the power and excitement of a narrative which is, in essence, a celebration of what its young heroine, Maja, at one point perceives as ‘the magic of the universe’.
Set in Manchester in 1604 and the present day, this is not so much a time-slip story as a drama about time itself, and the risks and limits of human aspiration to forbidden knowledge. In modern Manchester, Kate’s father, a gifted but drunken researcher into time and immortality, has disappeared. Kate, already on Special Report at school, is left to fend for herself and try to find him. But Kate’s story, though finally crucial, is only a small and sketchy element of the novel. Most of it takes place in the fevered intellectual and religious atmosphere of Jacobean England, and is set in the old town and its collegiate church (in later times the cathedral and grammar school), where piety, occultism and intellectual enquiry clash, and life and death have porous boundaries.
The Irish genius, boy wonder has his fifth outing. This time he seems more often than not on the side of the goodies as he tries to work with his friends in the fairy world to save demons from virtual extinction. His opponents include a girl, Minerva, more than an intellectual match and very pretty too. Is Artemis about to become fawningly pubescent?
Children who have been intrigued by the power of bamboo shoots to sprout and thrive in the neglected ditchwater of classroom plant corners might be interested in the concise story of Bamboo the farmer, who marries Ming, a good girl from the market. She gives him a humble marriage gift of bamboo seedlings before settling in to endure the bullying and rapacity of her sister-in-law Jin. After Bamboo leaves the village to seek his fortune, Jin’s nastiness precipitates a near tragedy, but the power of the bamboo grove ensures a just resolution.
From a series that aims to provide ‘simple stories for early readers’, these two titles illustrated in full colour throughout effectively bridge the gap between the picture book and the shorter novel.
This is a very powerful novel written for anyone above the age of 15. It is not for the faint-hearted; its theme is teenage depression and suicide.
We learn from the outset that the male narrator, 17-year-old Jersey Hatch, has made a suicide attempt by shooting himself in the head with his father’s gun. Since his attempt failed and he lived, Jersey must leave the rehabilitation hospital, scarred, blind in one eye and brain damaged with severe memory loss, to attempt what seems impossible: to return to his old life.
Josie has led a life poised on the edge of what she perceives as the excitement of the Second World War – toying with an unreliable but attractive young man, surrounded by the detritus of war, waiting to fulfil her dreams of going to Art school. When she is evacuated from London to her aunt and uncle’s farm, the boredom she anticipates never materialises.
This jolly little book takes a light-hearted look at the human brain. A lot of questions children ask are explored: questions about what the brain is like, how it can be viewed and how headaches are caused. There is an interesting brain map showing which parts of the brain are responsible for particular functions like touching, talking, moving and so on.
Hatched into the community of the barn owls, Soren is an endearingly excitable chick. His brother and nest-mate, Kludd, however is slightly less affable and pushes Soren from the nest whereupon he is captured by a rumoured group of kidnappers and is taken to an orphanage, St Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls.
We begin with the tumbrel and a vomiting prisoner kneeling beneath the guillotine; but turn the page to find ourselves in the stock-scented evening garden of the Rectory at Steventon, walking with the 18-year-old Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra. From this point, like her heroine, Veronica Bennett shrewdly decides that ‘three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on’ – with an occasional excursion to Bath or London. The known biographical details of Jane’s life and feelings leave considerable space for invention, an opportunity which has been convincingly exploited. Ms Bennett makes much of Jane’s encounter with the Irishman, Thomas Lefroy, finding in their brief meetings the love of an unfulfilled life.
This is the second story about Cat Royal who lives at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, courtesy of Richard Sheridan. A rollicking adventure set in London in 1790, it is a sequel to The Diamond of Drury Lane in which Cat made friends with Pedro, a former slave.
A tour of important paintings in major collections is this time conducted via a narrative thread spun around the absence of cats in any of the pictures. There are dogs, birds, tigers and fish but no cats.
Micklethwait’s selection of paintings is as always surprising, touching, funny and thought-provoking. These scenes of children at play, singing or asleep include some unusual pairings – a formal stylised Indian painting of the baby Krishna on a swing appears opposite a dynamic composition full of movement and jarring angles by the artist Ben Shahn.
When Bat arrives on the scene, the young animals are convinced she’s mad. After all, even a baby elephant knows an umbrella is for keeping your head dry not your feet, and any lion cub can tell you that when the river rises it’s your toes and not your ears that get wet. It takes some gentle interrogation from Wise Owl, some arboreal acrobatics on the part of baby elephant, giraffe calf and the rest of the menagerie, plus a spot of page, or rather book turning from the reader to reveal that bat’s not mad; she just has a different way of looking at things.
Another tremendous collection of traditional tales from Pont, featuring stories based on those passed down through the family of the gypsy storyteller Abram Wood, reputedly the first man to play a fiddle in Wales. Morden has taken written versions of the stories from an out of print book and revised them to fit the captivating rhythms of his own storytelling. Many of the stories feature Jack, the archetypal scamp, trickster and victim, who endures trials and torture to eventually emerge as victor. Familiar folklore motifs recur here, but always in original combinations and fresh contexts. These are tales of heartache, bloodshed and magic. Breckon’s monochrome scraperboard illustrations, in which a predominating pitch blackness seems to darken itself yet further against the creamy pages of this compact and sturdy hardback, provide a perfect accompaniment: a picture of Jack presenting his eyeballs to the reader on page seven is an apt image of adventures to come.
Our four heroes are now on a school trip to London with the rest of their classmates. Nothing too unusual happens until Well’ard attempts to shoplift; and then the fun begins. Separated from the rest of the class, they bump into Orpheus in the Underground (where else!), and help him to find Eurydice.
Teenager Simon Wells lives in a care home. He found his mother stabbed to death when he was seven. His father was convicted of murder and sent to prison, but has always claimed his innocence. Simon is traumatised. He has nightmares, violent outbursts and acts out bizarre ‘playing dead’ routines. At school he befriends classmate Kirsty, and opens up to her about his problems. Together they go in search of the truth, but strange accidents start happening and Simon’s life is put in danger.
Ben Maddox, television journalist for Zephon, is sent to investigate what is happening in Lansana, a west African country where the Yoori people of the north are agitating for independence. Maddox, and his cameraman, Jonny Aaranovitch, with the help of a local reporter Rebekah Arens, soon find that that there is plenty of trouble stirring with the activities of Yoori terrorist organization Red Fire, and then what lies behind the presence of former football international Eamonn Reilly in Lansana?
The fire thief in question, who has already appeared in a preceding book, is Prometheus. He may escape his punishment for stealing fire for humans if he can find a human hero to impress Zeus and Hera, since they are becoming tired of watching the antics at Troy. Achilles and Paris aren’t up to the job description, so Prometheus heads for the future, to Eden City in 1795. He’s been there before – in 1858. Yes, this is a confusing book. It switches back and forth between Troy and Eden City, and between Greek myths and the story of Helen of Eden City and her showman dad. They get embroiled in a dispute between the grubby colonialists of Eden City and the Wild Folk who live in the lands beyond their barricades. Helen and Prometheus use their wits, wings and hot air balloon to rescue the Wild Folk’s princess. In the process, Prometheus is nearly caught by the Avenger (sent to drag him off for punishment) and has to leave without discovering who the human hero in the Temple of the Hero is. This denouement is left for the third book in the trilogy.
Sarah Wray was chosen from thousands of hopefuls who entered the Wow Factor, a new major writing competition. Her story, The Forbidden Room, starts with Jenny, a teenager who loses her legs and is left orphaned after a car accident that kills her mother. (Note to publisher: please don’t use phrases like ‘confined to her wheelchair’ in your back cover blurb. You’re not doing your author any favours, and it isn’t even accurate since an important element in the story is Jenny’s talent for skiing on her prosthetic legs.)
‘Every little helps’ trumpets one well-known supermarket chain. George and his Grandpa discover that if it’s packaging (upon the use of which all supermarkets depend) the reverse is true until we world-lings do something about it.
When a baby dragon falls from the sky at Georgie’s feet, Georgie knows he must help him get home to his Mum. But Mum is a terrifying, fire-breathing dragon who lives on Far Purple Mountain, and Georgie really doesn’t want to go there. The baby dragon, Galahad, is fearful of all the obstructions in the way back to Mum. Georgie isn’t afraid of the journey, just of Galahad’s Mum. In a masterful piece of child psychology, Georgie convinces Galahad that a sword flower will carry him through all the very real dangers that beset them on their path. Then Mum turns out to be a cuddly, ‘mumsie’ dragon. Georgie is a hero to all in an obvious allusion to St George and the dragon – a brave little boy who discovers his particular dragons don’t need slaying.
Lawhead has taken the legend of Robin Hood, and turned it on its head, setting it in the time of William Rufus and Sherwood Forest has become the Welsh marches! Bran is the heir to the Welsh kingdom of Elfael, a wastrel, unloved by his widowed father. The Normans arrive, killing the King and all his warriors and nearly murdering Bran. But he is rescued by Angharad, a woman with healing ways, and she, by various means, persuades him that like the Raven of legend, he should rescue his people from the Norman yoke. At first reluctantly and then wholeheartedly he resolves to get his kingdom back and this first book ends as he is thwarted by William’s Chancellor, but finds a good use for the money he has plundered.
Tony Ross’s unnamed victim entertains various possibilities (17 in all) posed in a series of questions to his dog Pepe, as to why Peregrine Ffrogg is bullying him. Each of his plausible theories around insecurity and inadequacy is jokily illustrated in inimitable Ross style. His visual humour and the use of rhyming couplets make it easier to confront what is frequently a very painful and complex issue for both victim and perpetrator.
Mantra have published a number of successful titles which aim to broaden the range of genres available in dual language format and this latest title relates to ancient Egyptian mythology. They’ve been successful in getting the typography issues right so that each language text is set well in relation to the other. In this Vietnamese/English version, for example, where both languages use roman orthography, the Vietnamese text is set in a larger type above the English with good spacing between them.
Jango is the second volume of The Noble Warriors Trilogy. Seeker (short for Seeker after Truth) is the young hero of the first book, which saw him recruited as a novice to the Noble Warriors, an order of chivalry somewhere between knights and monks. They are a paradoxical group, essentially pacifist yet equipped with formidable military prowess. The Noble Warriors, dedicated to their god and to justice, live a reclusive existence in their fortress on the island of Anacreia. In this second book Seeker, and his friends the Wildman and the girl Morning Star, are for various reasons expelled or self-exiled from the order of the Noble Warriors and their island sanctum. Seeker has proved to be gifted with astonishing psycho-combative powers which the Warriors will not tolerate, and is rejected. In spite of this, his solitary adventures fulfil a ritual of training and initiation as if he were still an insider. Meanwhile the Warriors are themselves under attack from several directions. Seeker, acting alone, proves himself their loyal and indispensable rescuer in the costly and limited victory with which the book ends. There is plenty of unfinished business for volume three.
This splendid sing-along book is wonderful for pre-school and Early Years children for listening, dancing, then singing and acting out the story. A real toe-tapper. It is beautifully produced in bright colours with stylised pictures of everything the family sees as they journey home from Grandpa’s.
First published in America in 1992, Junie B. Jones, like Beverly Cleary’s Ramona, Lauren Child’s Lola and King-Smith’s Sophie, is a small girl just starting school and none too pleased with the idea.
First published in America in 1992, Junie B. Jones, like Beverly Cleary’s Ramona, Lauren Child’s Lola and King-Smith’s Sophie, is a small girl just starting school and none too pleased with the idea.
First published in America in 1992, Junie B. Jones, like Beverly Cleary’s Ramona, Lauren Child’s Lola and King-Smith’s Sophie, is a small girl just starting school and none too pleased with the idea.
First published in America in 1992, Junie B. Jones, like Beverly Cleary’s Ramona, Lauren Child’s Lola and King-Smith’s Sophie, is a small girl just starting school and none too pleased with the idea.
Just Like Mr Croc! is another in the series of Mr Croc pop-up books. The original, Knock! Knock! Mr Croc was a refreshing take on the game ‘What’s the Time Mr Wolf?’. The same formula is used here with the game ‘Simon Says’.
Imagine that Isaac Newton had not only discovered gravity but also had a spectacular success with his experiments in alchemy, creating a source of power that could fuel interplanetary travel. Imagine, then, 200 years later, a British Empire that stretches far into space; and you will have arrived at the point where Reeve’s new tale begins.
Little Bo Peep has, of course, lost her sheep. Perhaps the library has a book about how to find them. The helpful librarian, Mother Goose, directs her to lamb in the cooking section where she meets Big Bad Wolf (browsing through Basic Little Girl Cookery ) who follows her to the crime section (where the Queen of Hearts is engrossed in Mrs A. Summer’s Day’s Who Stole the Tarts ) and then the natural history section where she finds A. Shepherd’s How to Find Sheep .
This board book version of The Little Red Train Goes Chuff Chuff Chuff is billed on the front cover as ‘An adventure with noises’. This is certainly true, from honking to chuff-chuffing. The train loses its driver, who chases the runaway train using different modes of transport over different terrain.
Harry the teddy bear is two and a half inches tall (or 6.35cm as a publisher’s note helpfully informs post decimalisation readers of this 25th anniversary edition of The Lost Ears). Whilst Harry has few adventures in his life, he is extremely well read, for he lives in Oliver’s pyjama pocket, and reads along with Oliver in bed. What an expert he becomes! Unfortunately, one day he gets tossed into the washing machine along with the pyjamas. Not a happy experience. When Oliver discovers Harry’s ears are lost, he rejects him, so no more books for Harry.
‘There were three things that marked out Lucy Willow as different from other children. The first was that she lived on a train. The second, just as important, was that she had a snail called Ernest as a pet. And the third, the most important of all, was that she had green fingers.’
The title of this book refers to a travelling circus that wends its way through the shape-shifting badlands of a world mutated by war, scratching a living by bringing magic to communities of survivors. Just as bandits kill her father, Garland Maddigan, descendant of the circus founder, begins to have visions of a spirit-guide, and the circus is joined by two youths carrying a baby, who claim to have fled from the future. What follows is a convoluted odyssey as the circus toils from peril to peril in pursuit of its mission of securing the survival of the most civilised of the communities. En route, it strives against and redeems various damaged societies, while constantly being harried by a sinister duo pursuing the refugees.
Harry Potter has a lot to answer for. It’s now fashionable for young people’s novels to be of a positively Victorian length. The success of The Da Vinci Code also means that a once neglected bit of ‘foreign’ history is now deemed mainstream. Neither fact, however, diminishes the merits of Breslin’s new epic: a story of plots, murders and betrayals with a cast that includes not only Leonardo but the Medicis, Machiavelli and the Borgias.
I’m sure many adults turning the pages of this book to see the likes of ‘Humpty Dumpty’, ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’, ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, ‘Mary Mary’ and many more of the 46 nursery rhymes it contains will, like me, find themselves singing the words. I’m not sure whether it’s my parents or the BBC’s Listen With Mother that I have to thank more for this nostalgic pleasure. There’s nostalgia too in Beaton’s illustrations, beautifully stitched and embroidered using fabrics and felt, buttons, beads and braids bringing back memories of granny’s overflowing sewing basket and treasure box.
‘I stirred in my sleep… Where was I? Why could I never remember anything but the dreams? Since when? I couldn’t remember.’ Thus the young male amnesiac – Ram, as he calls himself – on the opening page of this entertaining and quick-moving thriller.
The impressive 3D lenticular cover immediately grabs the attention of my 10-year-old co-reviewer, who at once obeys the cover’s exhortation to pick it up and explore its contents. Sad to report this initial enthusiasm quickly wanes and the book is deemed too hard to read, even ‘too weird’. Puzzled by this response I persevere, but reluctantly come to the same conclusion.
Rai’s theme – perhaps ‘burden’ is a better word – is that how politics is done and presented in Britain is, to most people, a total turn-off, devoid of passion, conviction and fun. Like all memorable politicians, he’s entirely biased; unlike most he’s honest enough to say so.
This latest book in the ‘Through Time’ series uses large, landscape illustrations to tell the story of an imagined port over ten thousand years. It begins with a Stone-Age settlement in a natural harbour and then shows how this develops in twelve steps through Roman, Medieval stages and then into more modern times. Finally we see the port as it would be today, transformed by international trading companies and with a new marina to provide for modern leisure demands. This clear global organization means teachers and children would be able to use the book to support many different topics in history lessons.
This version of ‘Red Riding Hood’ is set in Ghana, with Mr Dog taking the part of the big bad wolf. Salma’s granny sends her off to market to get a few things (including a giant watermelon and a rooster with crazy eyes) which she carries in a big straw basket on her head. It’s getting hot and Salma absent-mindedly wanders into the wild side of town. It’s not long before Mr Dog offers to carry her basket for her and Salma forgets about not talking to strangers. As soon as Mr Dog has learnt the song Salma sings to her granny, he scares her away with his sharp teeth and takes off. We all know where.
A sequel to Powder Monkey and the further adventures of young Sam Witchall in the very early 1800s, first aboard a ship at the Battle of Copenhagen (led by Nelson himself) and then, because of the lies of some wicked shipmates, as a convict transported to Australia – after a stay of execution at the last possible minute.
Yanis has grown up as a slave in an orphanage and leaps at the chance to be apprenticed to the mysterious Dr Gomarus, who takes him off to a remote prison to photograph convicts’ skulls. There Yanis is fascinated by the revolutionary Nikolay Kolchak and acts as go-between for him and the alluring Countess who is sharing Dr Gomarus’s lodging. Yanis has to grow up fast, re-evaluating his childish belief in the Tsar but also discovering that his own instincts are not always to be trusted. By the end of the novel Yanis has unwittingly become implicated in a revolutionary plot and must decide whether to betray the revolutionaries by whom he has been used.
A boy, a girl and an in-between from three very different worlds are suddenly lifted out of their usual lives and transported to a parallel London. They discover that they have been genetically engineered as heroic questors who can restore balance to their magical world system. They must bring back a quest object from each of their three worlds. Needless to say, they succeed in doing so and save the worlds just as the compression of the pages indicates that we are hastening together to a happy conclusion.
Set in the England of Charles II, this is the fictional tale of Eliza Rose, swapped at birth for the son of a mason in the local village, to avoid her mother being divorced and cast out. Eliza is later thrown out of her adoptive family as a cuckoo in the nest and sets off to find her father who has left to seek work in London. She is rescued from Clink Prison by Ma Gwyn, and then taken under the wing of her daughter Nell, thus becoming an observer of the rakish life at court. Nell’s very straightforward approach to life (being a mistress of the King was her ambition) means that the bawdy life of King Charles’ court is vividly described and although the sexual exploits are not graphically portrayed there is enough there to make the reader well aware of what is happening. Eliza is determined not give up her virginity but this is threatened more than once. Eliza’s search for her family is poignantly told, but the reader’s credibility is stretched somewhat towards the end as the resolution is well signposted.
There are too many plots in this time slip story which lacks any historical feel. Charlie’s mother is accused of witchcraft in Elizabethan England and Charlie is transported with his mother’s cat, to medieval Northumberland – the link for this being Saint Oswald’s finger, a religious relic in the local church.
This inspiring little book was first published in France in 1992, and has sold over a million copies. Now happily translated by Sarah Adams, it is published here in a very attractive edition, with a foreword and illustrations by Quentin Blake. All that really needs to be said about it is that every parent, every junior school teacher, and every teacher of English should read it. Following Pennac’s own advice, the next thing a reviewer should do is not to analyse the book but to let the reader hear its own voice, so here goes. ‘What we need to understand is that books weren’t written so that my son/my daughter/young people could write essays about them, but so that they could read them if they really wanted to.’
Maybe it was just slow to get going with its apparently disconnected episodes and different characters and locations plus the sense that this was going to be Artemis Fowl in another guise but once into this world the book becomes a tremendous page-turner.
This boldly illustrated picture-book with its well honed narrative is a vivid and down-to-earth treatment of the traditional cautionary tale about how important it is to mind your language if you’ve been granted a wish.
Scaredy Squirrel is so scared that he never leaves his nut tree. He has to admit that life is boring, but on the other hand, he is safe from his special fears – green Martians, killer bees, tarantulas, poison ivy, germs and sharks.
I like the look and feel of this book. The range of photographs is full of interest, capturing the experience of a genuine visit, along with the excitement of seeing new sights and of a family reunion. A simple outline map at the beginning shows us the part of China being visited and the first photograph introduces us to the ‘writer’ – a little girl and her brother. The text is very well written, drawing us in and taking us along on Shanyi’s trip to China; ‘I was only three years old when I last went to China, and I don’t remember much about that trip. This time I’m going to write everything down so that I can share it with my friends when I get back.’
Before today, I had managed to avoid reading any Darren Shan, which means I had missed all 12 of his series of vampire novels (‘The Saga of Darren Shan’), and I have connected with this publishing phenomenon only at Book 3 of ‘The Demonata’, his new series.
This is a retelling of the Perseus myth – his beheading of the snake-headed Medusa, and his rescue of Andromeda from the rock of sacrifice. Much of Halam’s version concerns the earlier life of Perseus on the island of Serefos, where he found sanctuary with his mother Danae after they were expelled from Argos. The fisherman Dictys, who in the classical story saved mother and child from the sea, is here the older brother of the king of Serefos, displaced from his throne but allowed by King Polydectes to live more or less autonomously in the coastal settlement of Seatown, where he runs a taverna. In Snakehead Andromeda, too, has a time as refugee on Serefos, before the episode of sacrifice and rescue for which she is famous, so the various elements of the Perseus myth are unusually linked together
15 years on from her first appearance, she’s back, but slightly younger than in her last outing! The Children’s Laureate brings her Children’s Home heroine, Tracy Beaker, back for a third time. Interestingly, this third book is the second story chronologically, sandwiched between The Story of Tracy Beaker and The Dare Game.
Accused of disrupting the school trip to the Natural History Museum by teacher Mr Killingbeck, George Chapman is left to ruminate over his alleged misdeeds. When venting his frustration and anger against a carving of a dragon’s head, George breaks the masonry in so doing unwittingly drawing himself into an alternate layer of London.
This picture book was originally published in German in 1910. Von Olfers’ illustrations, originally chromolithographically reproduced, are here printed in the modern way giving an odd amalgam of old and new graphic processes.
All the action you could want here as a pair of teen twins take on a ruthless Russian criminal to rescue their dad from a fine mess he’s got himself into regarding a plot to hijack pretty well all the East’s oil supplies. Worthy really, since they didn’t know of Dad’s existence until the day of their mother’s funeral!
Containing a mixture of sketched illustrations, combined on some spreads with actual photographs, this witty picture book has shades of Lauren Child and Tony Ross about it but certainly feels original.
This is a good, old fashioned adventure story full of derring-do and a clear-cut, no-nonsense morality with all ends satisfyingly and completely tied up at its conclusion. The plot rattles along at a cracking pace, the characters – including the sea – are larger than life and yet the dilemmas always seem real and readers will find themselves cheering on the goodhearted characters whose courage and decency prevail and rejoicing in the downfall of the pantomime villain.
18-year-old Livia’s experience of love has been curtailed by her leukemia but her recent recovery has enabled her to visit her brother Jeff in America. During her visit she renews her acquaintance with his friend Adam and experiences real, mutual love for the first time – a world away from the unkindnesses and adolescent fumblings of her previous boyfriends. At the end of her holiday she becomes ill again…
What a refreshing change to come across a pirate book that’s not aimed strictly at boys. Trixy, Tammy and Trig are girl pirates who live aboard their ship, Lucky Lobster, along with Mullet the dog, Kipper the cat, Gulliver the parrot and a pair of ship-mice. When evil pirate Vanilla Cringe and her crew of sea dogs capture a group of mermaids, Mo, the princess mermaid, turns to the three little pirates for help.
Perce, Andy, Eddie and Well’ard have already encountered a few Ancient Greek characters in their lives, so it should come as no surprise to them when they meet Odysseus. This time, they are on a none too enthralling outward bound course in Bogmouth-on-Sylt; and halfway through orienteering is when Odysseus crops up.
This picture-book collection opens with a true contemporary story of a Native American who drives to a remote desert gravel pit and is visited by an ancestral ghost. The rest of the stories are traditional nature, trickster, moral and creation stories, each selected as emblematic of the large corpora of tales from diverse populations from across the vastness of the continent.
The world of 1950s northern England is movingly evoked in this collection of stories, which will remind many adult readers of the work of Bill Naughton. Here you will find the same plain language, robust storylines and shrewd humour, though Layton deals with some edgier themes, and deftly plays with timelines to enhance suspense.
Langrish’ second offering in the ‘Troll’ series again focuses on Peers Ulfsson, who, in the earlier book, escaped from his two brutal uncles. Now their disused mill is an eerie landmark, occupied by two lubbocks, creatures even lower than the trolls who are using the meal to grind bones for bread to be served at a feast to celebrate the birth of a troll prince.
From the culture which gave birth to the epic of Gilgamesh comes a story which is probably even older. The saga of Ugalabanda has been reconstructed from two fragmentary tales about this hero, a young prince who almost dies on the way to battle with a rival city and is abandoned in a cave by his brothers. After appealing to the gods and befriending through flattery the huge and all-powerful Anzu bird, he rejoins his brothers in the hopeless war. He is then sent to carry an appeal to the goddess Inana, who delivers an enigmatic message that somehow brings about an era of peace. If this sounds rather fragmentary, it is a tribute to the fidelity with which Henderson has rebuilt the story. You can assess the process yourself by perusing translations of the originals in the annals of Sumerian literature at www.etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk, a resource helpfully referenced in the book. The narrative jumps and elisions, the ritual repetitions and indeterminate ending are all characteristic of salvaged epics, and though these features might not contribute much to narrative drive, this story is well worth talking through with readers. The book is beautifully designed, its clear typography spaciously laid out on subtly tinted pages embellished with Jane Ray’s margin motifs and powerful depictions of mythic events.
It is never easy to please the boss, on your first day at work as Rat discovers when he becomes Mr Fat Cat’s new assistant. The strict daily schedule demands much in the way of servitude, but when Rat clatters noisily about and causes Mr Fat to forget his VERY IMPORTANT IDEA, trouble lies ahead.
This big, square, shiny picture book inspires a tremendously strong sense of place. A farming family in the Australian bush struggle to cope with a severe drought. Dad and young Dougie make their way by horse and cart to Last Stop Well and haul up water bucket by bucket to fill their tank. Ormerod uses a restricted palette of fierce oranges, parched browns and strident blues to show an arid landscape – ‘the crops are brown and crisp in the sun’. The strong black line defining people and animals somehow emphasizes their vulnerability in the harsh, dry heat.
From the cover, a reader might expect this book to be non-fiction, but there is no doubt it is a story once the cover is opened and the endpaper revealed. A charming, stylised seaside town crouches on the shoreline, snuggling beneath tall black cliffs.
From a series that aims to provide ‘simple stories for early readers’, these two titles illustrated in full colour throughout effectively bridge the gap between the picture book and the shorter novel.