Issue No. 163 - March 2007
COVER STORY
This issue’s cover illustration is from Meg Rosoff’s Just In Case.
Meg Rosoff is interviewed by Nicholas Tucker .
Thanks to Penguin Books for their help with this March cover.
Articles In This Issue
Philippa Pearce was not a prolific writer given that her writing career spanned 47 years from the publication of Minnow on the Say in 1958 to The Little Gentleman in 2005.
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Hand over your new book to be promoted by teenagers? Surely not! Authors sometimes don’t entirely trust their publisher’s publicity department, so why trust a load of hormonally-challenged, neurologically-rearranged, sleep-deprived adolescents? Author Nicola Morgan explains.
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For the past two years, children’s literary scout and festival organiser John McLay has been putting together a ‘Best Books of the Year’ list. What is unique about McLay’s list is that he canvasses opinions from all corners of the children’s publishing industry, ie from the people for whom the creation and assessment of children’s books is a core activity. So which books published in 2006 got the industry’s votes? Rosemary Stones finds out.
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No two encyclopedias of children’s literature will be the same but their evaluation demands assessment of their scope not to speak of their authority and accuracy. Format, clarity and accessibility are the other factors that crucially underpin the endeavours of the compiler/s of encyclopedias. How successful is the new Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature ? Brian Alderson discusses.
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The setting to Mairi Hedderwick’s Katie Morag stories, the fictional Isle of Struay, is as central to the stories as Katie Morag McColl herself. Based on the Isle of Coll, Hedderwick’s home for many years, the land and seascapes of Struay with their changing moods and light are both backdrop to and part of the stories. Here Mairi Hedderwick explains the thinking and techniques behind her illustration.
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Meg Rosoff interviewed by Nicholas Tucker
A Praise Poem
Poetry anthologies for children too often contain the favourite and the familiar. In this new occasional series, Robert Hull selects an individual poem that has not (to best of our knowledge) been published in a selection aimed at children and suggests ways it might be used with children. Here he presents a praise poem from the oral tradition of the Dinka people.
MORE »Take 3: Eponymous Imprints
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Hal is now 6 and two months and writing thank you letters is a frustrating business. His father, psychodynamic counsellor Roger Mills, explains.
MORE »Tamarside Community College is a mixed comprehensive college with 1260 students on roll. When last year’s SATs results came in, the staff were shocked to find that the boys’ level 5 results were 50% less than the girls. Why had boys’ literacy taken such a dramatic nose dive? What could the school do to rectify the situation? Teacher Philip Wilkinson explains.
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Stuart Hill on a classic that is almost the complete children’s story…
MORE »Chosen by Year 7-10 (11-15 year-old) pupils from Broadwater School, Godalming, Surrey.
Thanks to Linda Goldsmith, Learning Resource Centre Manager
News
John Dunne retires
Anne Marley pays tribute…
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Raising the Standard for
( The Battle of Bubble and Squeak )
MORE »Reviews In This Issue
Too often, publishers impose the bells and whistles of paper engineering on stories because they can, rather than with any discernable purpose. Lauren Child’s Beware of the Storybook Wolves worked very well as a picture book when first published in 2006 so what is the justification for its transformation, via flaps, gatefolds, levers and pop-ups, into a novelty format?
A year has gone by since Charlie went surfing at night and was discovered the next morning lying on the rocks by her younger brother, 15-year-old Hal. It has been a year for the family of visiting Charlie in hospital where she lies in a coma. Is she brain dead or trapped in her inert body, conscious of their presence, listening to what is said to her? And was it an accident? Who was she with that night?
This book consists of 101 spreads, each just over A5 in size, divided into Nature, Science, The Universe, Animals, The Human Body, History, How Do You..., Weird and Miscellaneous.
As its title suggests, this delightful large format book illustrates animals, and parts of animals, both large and small, at actual size.
Controversy may dog this novel for two reasons. First, spiritualism is presented as a natural source of comfort to the bereaved – which will doubtless offend some mainstream Christians.
An unusual pop-up that goes down the tricky route of using photographs rather than artwork.
When Amethyst receives a summons from Lord Granite to leave her clayey cave-like home and travel to Malachite Mountain she doesn’t know what to expect.
To my shame, this is the first of Shan’s books I have read; I now understand why they are so popular. This is the fourth in the Demonata series, but the novel can stand alone. However, Shan fans will no doubt be intrigued by its hints about Lord Loss’s first appearance in our world.
When Jack finds himself flat on his back in hospital after falling off his bike, he knows it won’t be long before the police track him down. To take his mind off things, he and fellow ward mate Liam come up with some crazy ideas to liven things up. But it’s not until Maisie arrives that Jack is able to reveal exactly what happened in the supermarket on the day of his accident.
Superficially, this is a mundane domestic story. Its narrator is Josh, just into secondary school and possessed with an exceptional memory for facts and by a fascination with lions and other members of the cat family. Its plot, however, centres on the seemingly inexplicable behaviour of his younger brother Jamie who suddenly retreats into silence but is revealed to be mentally possessed in a more sinister way by one particular lion.
She’s back, worrying about infinity and whether the house will fall down, will her parents get divorced, will she make a new best friend when Betty Moody goes to live in America. Is the new girl in league with baddy Justin Broach? Who is he bullying? And just why is Mr Larsson so angry? Clarice Bean, potentially every nine-year-old’s alter ego/best friend, has a lot on her plate in this third novel.
In March it is 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade yet still youngsters are traded today, mainly as house slaves and sex workers. This important novel tackles the issue head on resulting in a shocking and uncomfortable read. 50p from the sale of each book goes to UNICEF.
Elmer is the well known kind and easygoing patchwork elephant who is friends with every animal in the jungle. In Elmer and the Lost Teddy , he averts disaster by loaning Baby Elephant his own teddy before setting out to look for Baby Elephant’s lost teddy.
Intended primarily for use in the classroom during guided reading sessions, this series of six books for Y3 and Y4 children offers much to hold children’s interest. The books cover specific genres – mystery and adventure for Y3, and stories that raise issues for Y4 – and are differentiated, in each year group, into lower ability, average and good readers. Stories are varied and stylishly written, based on themes and settings with which children will be familiar. Plots are straightforward, with no subplot or characters unrelated to immediate events to divert the reader’s attention.
Clever and totally assured, it is hard to believe that this is a first novel from a new author. Written in the voice of Lucas, a 16-year-old boy living in the classier part of North London, it describes how the discovery of an abandoned urn containing human ashes eventually leads him to finding out the truth about his mysteriously missing Dad.
This fast moving picture book tells a story that will have enormous appeal for young children. The illustrations, with a sharp clean line against colourful background washes, are full of life and movement. The book is about trust: should you believe what people say? Two fledglings astonish each other with their claims. The swallow, Apollo, thinks it unlikely that his friend Clack, the blackbird, will change from brown to black as he says he will. ‘I don’t believe you,’ says Apollo. Clack finds it equally difficult to accept Apollo’s confidence that he will soon fly with all the other swallows to Africa. Then, looking at Clack’s nest in a tree covered in white blossom, Apollo is amazed to hear his friend say: ‘One day the tree will be covered in tasty orange berries’.
The title highlights the 14-year-old heroine’s Ghanaian background. Makeeda lives in North West London with her family: her parents and annoying younger sister, Delphina. But, if Delphina can be a thorn in the side, she’s nothing compared to Makeeda’s glamorous cousin, Tanisha, over from the States. Makeeda can’t forget her sense of displacement when Tanisha came to stay with the family five years ago, having lost her own mother (Makeeda’s Aunt Jennifer).
Hello, Who’s There? follows the journey of a baby duck, who comes upon different animals in their habitat. Aimed at very young readers, from 9 months to 2 years, the text comprises the words in the title and a response from each animal.
When Mulumbe’s mother is killed by marauders, her father turns to drink and abandons his children to cruel Stepmother. She wants Mulumbe to marry beer-smelling, wife-beater Olinji. But Grandmother protects Mulumbe. She passes on stories about clever Hare and how strangers had dispossessed them of their fertile land by damming up their once great river. Life is now a constant struggle under the African sun and, after Grandmother dies, Mulumbe flees in search of her beloved brother Tom. In a dangerous journey across the border to the faraway City of Gold, Mulumbe needs all Hare’s tricks and Grandmother’s stories to survive.
Following his previous successes in star roles, Tim is naturally astonished and disappointed to be cast as a tree in the school production of Robin Hood . And so dull and lifeless rehearsals turn into a dull and lifeless play...
‘I’m no Black Beauty’, announces the hero of this horse autobiography. No, indeed he isn’t. He is Bucephalus, perhaps the most famous horse of all time, the stallion who carried Alexander the Great on his megalomaniac imperialist campaign from Macedonia to India, defeating the might of Persia on the way. Alexander is one of only two people who can ride Bucephalus, an Alexander among horses. The other in this story is a girl called Charmeia (always Charm for short) who becomes his groom. There is a ‘horse bond’ between Bucephalus and these two people, a profound telepathic loyalty which can only be broken by death. Charm first came to Macedonia intent on murderous revenge against Alexander’s father, Philip, who had raped and destroyed her mother: she is Alexander’s half-sister, in fact. Revenge is displaced by the tie she forms with Alexander and the horse.
There are not many solo collections of poetry for children being published lately, so it’s good to see something getting through, even if it does entail small- or self-publication. Chrissie Gittins is not the only poet currently to take this course, which neatly sidesteps the problems of being taken up by a major house and undergoing the rigours of being edited to their strictures.
Sam is pleased that big brother Ben is going away for a week’s adventure holiday. Sam will have their room to himself, and he won’t be teased or bossed around, or have to cope with Ben scaring him or fighting with him.
Children from congested slum areas in Britain were sometimes sent to open air schools during the early and mid-twentieth century. The classrooms in these schools were mostly without walls and dormitories were very well-ventilated as a means of keeping the dreaded tuberculosis at bay. When Charlie, a child of the 21st century, jumps on some old stepping stones in Cold Tarn Woods near her home, she suddenly finds herself in the 1950s and mistaken for a new girl at Cold Tarn Open Air School.
The publisher’s promotional material suggests this ‘is the perfect book for anyone who… never missed a single episode of The OC’. Certainly it reads like a pitch for a teen TV series.
On arrival at an elite prep school, the not so rich and not so handsome Gideon finds he is to room with two of the in-crowd, who promptly lay odds on how long it will take him to lose ‘the other half of his virginity’. Gideon happily participates in this demeaning bet and yes, the book does revolve around this issue, with a few forays into drugs and socialising. There were 32 pages missing from my review copy, but it didn’t make much difference to my ability to follow the plot. The title implies that one of the female characters has access to Gideon’s thoughts. She narrates the book from this privileged position, but there isn’t much difference between this and ordinary omniscient narration. The style is light, flippant and will appeal to a teen readership.
Nadin’s amusing adventure story treads similar lines to the work of Philip Ardagh. Anarchic humour and gruesome characters feature against a backcloth with enough historical accuracy to draw children into the time in which the story is set. In this case, some interesting details of pirate customs and punishments provide a backdrop for a well plotted story. Jake runs away, joins up with a Captain who is pursuing pirate treasure, only to be surprised by a twist in the tale.
A school trip to Eyam, the 17th-century plague-stricken village which sealed itself off to prevent the spread of the disease, should have had all the ingredients to fascinate Year 8. But Seth’s rebellious twin, Kim, and her partner-in-mischief, Wes, are after more material kicks when they spot coins at the bottom of Mompesson’s Well. Tradition has it that coins were left at the safe limits of the village in payment for food – thrown in the well for cleansing or left in the hollow of the Boundary Stone at the other end of the village, doused in vinegar.
First published in America, this powerful novel is a worthy successor to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic The Long Winter . The enemy is still the weather, but this time the result not of natural causes but turned upside down by a catastrophic collision between an asteroid and the moon.
Moving to Moscow is an upheaval for Max the dog especially as snow is a new experience for him. He meets other dogs in the park and makes friends. They all play with Max’s ball, which to their complete bafflement disappears into the snow.
The success of this story depends upon a child understanding the relationship between a fox and a lamb. Miss Fox, the teacher, regularly plies her charges with cream cakes. These assorted creatures love the cakes… and hence, Miss Fox.
This volume combines two titles from the 1980s: You Can’t Catch Me and Don’t Put Mustard in the Custard together with a CD of the author reading the poems. Having heard and seen Mike Rosen perform many of his poems both live and on TV, I always have his voice in my head whenever I open one of his books; and perform is truly what he does. Both as a writer and reader Rosen has that seemingly simple, nevertheless amazing skill, of turning such ordinary everyday incidents as putting on one’s shoes, asking questions or turning off the bedroom light into full blown dramas. As of course, that’s what they really are – at least to the child at the time.
Intended primarily for use in the classroom during guided reading sessions, this series of six books for Y3 and Y4 children offers much to hold children’s interest. The books cover specific genres – mystery and adventure for Y3, and stories that raise issues for Y4 – and are differentiated, in each year group, into lower ability, average and good readers. Stories are varied and stylishly written, based on themes and settings with which children will be familiar. Plots are straightforward, with no subplot or characters unrelated to immediate events to divert the reader’s attention.
Intended primarily for use in the classroom during guided reading sessions, this series of six books for Y3 and Y4 children offers much to hold children’s interest. The books cover specific genres – mystery and adventure for Y3, and stories that raise issues for Y4 – and are differentiated, in each year group, into lower ability, average and good readers. Stories are varied and stylishly written, based on themes and settings with which children will be familiar. Plots are straightforward, with no subplot or characters unrelated to immediate events to divert the reader’s attention.
This is the third instalment of Hale’s trilogy about the struggle between two warring nations in a vividly imagined fantasy civilisation. The war between the pastoral kingdom of Bayern and its militaristic neighbour Tira is over, following a battle in which a mysterious Bayern ‘fire speaker’ has incinerated a tenth of the Tiran army. The novel opens with peace talks in which an exchange of envoys is agreed. Razo, a runtish young forester, is chosen as one of the Bayern warrior company who will spend a season with their embittered enemies. Unknown to the Tirans, the fire-speaker herself, his friend Enna, is also amongst the company. She has taken a vow never to kill again, but almost as soon as they are in enemy territory, the burnt corpses of Tiran soldiers begin to appear around their camp, and the fragile peace becomes increasingly endangered.
A delicious cautionary tale starring Pterosaur twins whose sole occupation seems to be shouting, squabbling, screaming, screeching or some other form of adversarial engagement as each strives to prove his supremacy over his sibling.
This is essentially an information book about a dental check-up presented with a mix of computer 3D illustration and actual plasticene models. These are framed thoughtfully and laid out almost like the book of an animated film (given the setting, less worrying than photographs I suppose).
Intended primarily for use in the classroom during guided reading sessions, this series of six books for Y3 and Y4 children offers much to hold children’s interest. The books cover specific genres – mystery and adventure for Y3, and stories that raise issues for Y4 – and are differentiated, in each year group, into lower ability, average and good readers. Stories are varied and stylishly written, based on themes and settings with which children will be familiar. Plots are straightforward, with no subplot or characters unrelated to immediate events to divert the reader’s attention.
This latest book about Sir Gadabout (not known for nothing as the Worst Knight in the World) will continue to keep his fans amused. Due to the continued chaos that erupts wherever he goes, Gadabout is sent off to Knight School to try to learn something – but as Sir Lancelot is called away at the last moment, Gadabout ends up teaching the knights in a way that defies just about every chivalric intention they have ever learnt or heard of.
Intended primarily for use in the classroom during guided reading sessions, this series of six books for Y3 and Y4 children offers much to hold children’s interest. The books cover specific genres – mystery and adventure for Y3, and stories that raise issues for Y4 – and are differentiated, in each year group, into lower ability, average and good readers. Stories are varied and stylishly written, based on themes and settings with which children will be familiar. Plots are straightforward, with no subplot or characters unrelated to immediate events to divert the reader’s attention.
Surrounded by a disintegrating world, guitarist Ziggi shuts it all out with his music; ‘Why was I born?’ he sings soulfully into the night. Whereupon an angelic white stallion whisks him off – wonderful life style – to answer his question. From a celestial viewpoint he sees his parents, doctors, nurses, teachers, musical heroes, girlfriend and their future children. All of these – like notes in a tune – make up his reason for living. So now Ziggi sings a new song – ‘the purpose of life is that life has a purpose – that’s why we were born.’
New editions of The Odyssey appear with almost metronomic regularity on the market, and the happy paradox that almost all of them make good, fresh reading is testimony to the vernal power of this saga to inspire successive generations of retellers. Lupton and Morden are master bards who have themselves wandered the world reciting this version of the story. They adhere to its classical structure: after a prologue vividly outlining the Judgement of Paris and the Trojan War, a destitute Odysseus, granted asylum at the court of King Alcinous, recounts the catastrophes that have ruined him and killed all of his companions. He then sets off to reclaim Ithaca, knowing that even should he succeed, a longer and lonelier journey awaits him. This is conveyed in a lucid vernacular prose with some poetic cadences, uncompromising in its reflection of the gloom, grief and violence of the original. However, the tale is also illuminated by vivid episodes of enchantment and tenderness. All of this is captured in the paintings by Christina Balit that surround the text, spacious visions of seascapes, islands, and the calamitous minglings of humans and immortals, beautifully depicted in watercolour, gouache and golden ink.
This lift the flap alphabet book from the well-known picture book partnership has their familiar cartoon style illustrations and plenty of amusing details and speech bubbles thrown in for extra interest and involvement in the book.
From the inspired choice of E V Rieu’s ‘The Paintbox’ as a kind of preface, one comes to the rest of this anthology with high expectations. These are more than met in this veritable treasure trove wherein, beginning with Kathleen Raine’s ‘Spell of Creation’, Jackie Morris takes us on life’s journey from the womb to the grave and beyond, via such delights as Plath’s ‘Morning Song’, Poe’s ‘Annabel Lee’, Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’, Coleridge’s ‘The Birds’, Laurie Lee’s ‘wild trees of home’ and Lear’s ‘land of Bong-trees and runcible spoons’.
The 584 pages of this extraordinary novel are centred on the lives of families and individuals in a town in Nazi Germany. Liesel, nine at the beginning of The Book Thief , is parted from her family in the chaos of Hitler’s rise to power; little explanation is given although it seems her parents were communists. Fostered by Rosa and Hans Hubermann, she grows to early teenage in a tough but loving environment. Hard times are exacerbated by Hans’s reluctance to join the Nazi party or to persecute the Jews in his town. Formerly a soldier in World War One, his life was saved by another soldier, Erik Vandenburg, a Jew, so when his son Max turns up on Hans’s doorstep Hans feels obliged to hide him, despite the huge risks involved. Hans is one of the great characters in the book: humane and patient, he teaches Liesel to read the books which she loves and which acquired by stealth, she builds into an eclectic library.
The second book in the series about the five members of the Courageous Cats Club sees our friends involved in a Sports Match where the important talent turns out to be not just winning but one or two other things besides.
It’s an ordinary lazy day for Dirk Dilly, mountain-dragon detective, until a young girl called Holly calls about her missing cat. He’s unwilling to take the case on, considering it beneath his dignity, but he reluctantly agrees when she starts to bawl down the phone at him, her howls becoming louder by the minute.
The original’s extraordinary gallery of characters and a fabulous story are a treat awaiting new readers. This version adds enticing extras with the wild assortment of Hughes’s illustrations, the grand look of the book itself and the feel of its crisp pages.
This set of CDs comprises the series of 30 broadcasts produced by the BBC on Radio 4 in the autumn of 2006, forming a history of British childhood over more than a thousand years. It begins with a seventh-century child’s grave in a Lincolnshire Anglo-Saxon graveyard, and ends with the conditions of childhood here and now. The cover shows two pictures, one of medieval children, the other of boys from (judging by their dress and haircuts) about 1950. Both lots are snowballing. These pictures neatly sum up the central theme of the series – that children stay the same across the ages, but childhood is a social, political, religious and cultural construct which is always being re-invented.
When Captain Hammerhead poisons the party guests and makes off with the family treasure it’s left to Nicholas Nosh – the littlest pirate in the world – to save the day. With the help of Gretta the cook and six poorly pirates, Nicholas sets sail in the Golden Pudding to find the missing treasure.
Every night a 12-fingered child called Jub empties a sack full of happy endings from her perch in a tree top, freeing them for the wind to distribute amongst all of the stories being told throughout the world. One night she is mugged by a bark-faced, green-gobbing witch who steals the happy endings, and soon the world is a-wail with the sobs of children distressed by stories whose terrors and sorrows are now incurable. Jub struggles to sleep against a backdrop of weeping, and dreams of a golden pen with which she can write on the sky a story that will change the one that she’s locked within.
John Forster (read Faustus and you’ll be right on the button) is a very gifted lad heavily into all aspects of fantasy, especially Arthurian legend. Only Verity, his sister, has spotted that something is not right and that the youngster is undergoing a sinister character change as the alien Lurkers start to reveal themselves and their nightmare schemes to take over the human race.
Waddell shares a clutch of traditional stories he first heard from the Irish storytellers of his childhood. Some of the stories, such as ‘Tom Tit Tot’ and ‘The Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach’ have been extensively anthologized, but there are also some less familiar tales.
The time is the First World War. When two little French girls, Marcelle, ten, and Coco, eight, find a man in the woods near their home on the Channel coast, they think at first that he is dead. But he is not, though he is temporarily blind, a symptom not of physical injury but shock. The man is an English lieutenant, a deserter who has headed for home after seeing his platoon slaughtered in battle. He carries with him a good luck charm, a silver donkey, a gift from his young and gravely ill brother, so that ‘Every time you see it, you’ll remember to do your best’. However forgivably in the horrors of trench war, the lieutenant has not done his best, and knows it. The little girls care for him, recruiting their brother and then an older friend to aid his escape, and Coco, a brave little girl, comes to love the silver donkey. When the soldier goes away he leaves the silver donkey for Coco to find, because it ‘belongs to the trustworthy and the brave’.
Intended primarily for use in the classroom during guided reading sessions, this series of six books for Y3 and Y4 children offers much to hold children’s interest. The books cover specific genres – mystery and adventure for Y3, and stories that raise issues for Y4 – and are differentiated, in each year group, into lower ability, average and good readers. Stories are varied and stylishly written, based on themes and settings with which children will be familiar. Plots are straightforward, with no subplot or characters unrelated to immediate events to divert the reader’s attention.
Whether it’s a Robinson Crusoe, Peter Pan’s cronies or the islanders on a current television series, the theme of being lost has sturdy narrative foundations. Tom Kelly’s story is about just that, a lost boy. The difference is, Danny begins this story in the cold bosom of a family thrown into emotional turmoil by the death of his twin brother, Finn. At no point is this loss turned into a great drama, indeed when it is eventually recounted it stands on the verge of anticlimax. The real lost soul here is Danny, and this is effectively put across to the reader by the way the first person narration darts around for the first half of the story. It ranges across some moments of laugh-aloud humour, including some of the most well judged appeals to the toilet humour of children I’ve encountered in children’s fiction. In this Kelly is bang up to date with current playground sensibilities, without being facile or patronising. The real brilliance of the story lies in the way in which he interlaces this humour with a truly moving sense of Danny’s lack of connection with everything that goes on around him. From the first half of the novel a set of questions gradually emerges about what happened to Finn and what will now happen to Danny.
Hunchbacked Pheemie is perceived as a witch in a fishing village in 17th-century Fife. The story starts as the fishermen blame her for the weather which won’t allow them to fish that day, although it is not clear why this particular weather and day should be the catalyst for the series of events which follows.
First published in a chunky hardback edition in 2005 and now reappearing as an equally chunky paperback, Chambers’ new novel takes ‘young adult’ fiction well beyond most of the previous manifestations of the genre.
The illustrations in this title are colourful and lively, matching the idyllic textual portrayal of Tom and Sofia’s first day at school. The two children (from different families) tell their ‘starting school’ stories side by side on each double page spread with the word ‘Tom’ or ‘Sofia’ provided next to the relevant text.
Aimed firmly at girls, as the sparkly covers make clear, here are stories about Topaz and her friends Sapphire and Ruby, all three pupils at Precious Gems Stage School.
Topaz Takes a Break finds the three girls at the end of their first year and ready to embark on their holidays at a water theme park. In Topaz on Ice , Topaz is determined to get a part in the Ice Spectacular even though she’s never been near an ice rink in her life. In Topaz Takes the Stage , Sapphire’s mum, a hugely egoistical film star with no redeeming qualities, writes a play about herself in which Topaz hopes for a star role. In all these books, Topaz is pitted against her arch enemy Octavia Quaver and her ghastly mum.
Aimed firmly at girls, as the sparkly covers make clear, here are stories about Topaz and her friends Sapphire and Ruby, all three pupils at Precious Gems Stage School.
Topaz Takes a Break finds the three girls at the end of their first year and ready to embark on their holidays at a water theme park. In Topaz on Ice , Topaz is determined to get a part in the Ice Spectacular even though she’s never been near an ice rink in her life. In Topaz Takes the Stage , Sapphire’s mum, a hugely egoistical film star with no redeeming qualities, writes a play about herself in which Topaz hopes for a star role. In all these books, Topaz is pitted against her arch enemy Octavia Quaver and her ghastly mum.
Aimed firmly at girls, as the sparkly covers make clear, here are stories about Topaz and her friends Sapphire and Ruby, all three pupils at Precious Gems Stage School.
Topaz Takes a Break finds the three girls at the end of their first year and ready to embark on their holidays at a water theme park. In Topaz on Ice , Topaz is determined to get a part in the Ice Spectacular even though she’s never been near an ice rink in her life. In Topaz Takes the Stage , Sapphire’s mum, a hugely egoistical film star with no redeeming qualities, writes a play about herself in which Topaz hopes for a star role. In all these books, Topaz is pitted against her arch enemy Octavia Quaver and her ghastly mum.
From the flickering 3D eye on the cover to the punning title, it’s clear that this guide to dinosaurs promises a lively approach to the subject. Professor Potts, dinosaur investigator, concentrates on just one aspect of these creatures – their skin colour.
I can’t think of another guide to poetry written for children and young people like this. There are, I guess, over 200 individual collections and anthologies reviewed in depth. As well as the usual suspects, the editors have picked up titles that perhaps we don’t see through mainstream channels and have also included poetry in translation.
‘Barbarians with attitude!’ proclaims the front cover of this satisfyingly squat, fat, very yellow book. Urgum and his seven sons are trying to uphold good old-fashioned barbarian values in the face of creeping gentrification as his wife, who reads all the right magazines, takes advantage of his long barbarian absences to do up the cave. Meanwhile, the gods have to preserve Urgum’s life at all costs – he is the last mortal believer, and without him they will be myth.
The story of a Viking longship, the men and women who built her, sailed in her and finally were buried in her, runs through the centre of this imaginative and lively portrait of Viking life. Described by the publisher as a ‘fly-on-the wall sketchbook’, this approach allows for many different levels of text and different ‘voices’.
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Weedflowers are the flowers farmed by the Japanese family of Sumiko in California. Their livelihood is shattered when Pearl Harbour is bombed and an even greater prejudice against the ‘Nikkei’ overtakes America; all Japanese are rounded up and shipped to camps to sit out the war. In the crushing boredom of virtual imprisonment Sumiko derives comfort from the garden that she creates in the desert and from her fragile relationship with a boy, Frank, from the local Native American reservation.
The long-awaited sequel to Exodus fulfils all its anticipated promise. A timely warning of global flooding, it continues Mara’s story as she tries to lead the refugees from the boat camp outside the sky city of New Mungo to the land she believes still exists at the top of the drowned world.