Issue No. 164 - May 2007
COVER STORY
This issue’s cover is from Philip Reeve’s Here Lies Arthur . Philip Reeve is interviewed by Geoff Fox. Thanks to Scholastic Children’s Books for their help with this May cover.
Articles In This Issue
In 1981 Susanne Bosche’s photo-story book, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin , about a day in the life of a little girl who lives with two daddies (her biological father and his male partner) was published in the UK. It caused an outcry and led to the infamous Section 28 which was supposed to ban books in schools that ‘promoted’ homosexuality.
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Stephanie Nettell discusses Julia Golding’s ‘Cat Royal’ trilogy
‘“You’re as good as many a boy I know – and better than some.” …I felt a rush of pleasure to hear this compliment…’ Cat Royal spends half her life not only behaving like a boy but dodging danger disguised as one.
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What picture of the Israeli-Palestinian question do children gain from reading contemporary fiction? Do such titles help young readers to understand the complexities of the situation and identify empathically with the protagonists, whether Palestinian or Israeli? In this first part of his article, Professor Fouad Moughrabi focuses on Lynne Reid Banks’ Broken Bridge .
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Poetry anthologies for children too often contain the favourite and the familiar. In this series ‘Teaching’ Poems for Children, Robert Hull selects an individual poem that has not (to best of our knowledge) been published in a selection aimed at young readers and suggests ways it might be used with them. Here he presents a Chinese poem.
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Philip Reeve interviewed by Geoff Fox
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Can publishers help persuade young people to read the classics with editions specifically aimed at them? How can the ‘active pleasure’ of reading such titles be conveyed? And which of the great titles from the past should children have read before they leave school? Peter Hollindale discusses.
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Run by a collective of writers, artists and designers in Chennai, India, Tara Books is an independent publishing company that produces beautifully illustrated children’s books, many of them handcrafted using traditional artisanal skills. Nicky Potter went to meet them.
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Justin Somper on a novel that ‘almost condenses the teenage years into a haiku…’
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Hal is now six and four months and is reading whole books by himself! His father, psychodynamic counsellor Roger Mills , explains.
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Children’s Book Sequels: what comes next?
www.childrensbooksequels.co.uk
MORE »NEWS
CILIP Carnegie and Greenaway shortlists announced
In this, the Carnegie Medal’s 70th anniversary year, the shortlist for 2007 is:
MORE »Chosen by Year 8 (12-13 year old) pupils from Hitchin Boys’ School, Hertfordshire.
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Trim Craft on the Ocean of Story in...
English Fairy Tales
MORE »Reviews In This Issue
Told in a seamless combination of words and line drawings, this story introduces Ottoline and her small hairy companion Mr Munroe whom Ottoline’s explorer parents found in a bog in Norway.
Nate and Cat love inventing and although things often go wrong (a mechanical dresser makes great gashes in Nate’s bedroom wall) the friends’ passion for creating gadgets is undiminished.
Dec’s mother apparently left without saying goodbye, driving off into the night six years before.
Nix’s many existing fans will seize this book with enthusiasm, but readers new to his work will be puzzled by it.
Anyone who has ever got lost in the streets of Venice and then unexpectedly found themselves in St Mark’s Square will find that Levithan’s new novel unlocks a host of holiday memories.
Maintaining an up-to-date reference library is no simple task for most primary schools.
Once more Angela Barrett has produced her own vision of a well-loved tale.
Robert knows little of his past and his present becomes an inescapable nightmare when a routine hospital procedure under anaesthetic leaves him awake but unable to communicate his pain and distress.
This story reads like Tolkien re-written by Spike Milligan.
Charlotte is anything but the stereotypical sheep: rather than being one of the flock, she prefers climbing trees, swimming in streams, mountaineering and generally exploring, especially at night.
A new book on castles by Richard Platt seems such an appealing prospect, focusing as it does on Crac des Chevaliers, that most magnificent of all the Crusader castles.
This collection is both welcome and original in that it presents a variety of genres from a range of contemporary authors, encompassing traditional animal and magical stories and accounts of adventure
Williams has re-written several other classic tales in colourful, comic-book style. The Canterbury Tales , in which pilgrims try to outdo one another in storytelling, as they travel f
Maintaining an up-to-date reference library is no simple task for most primary schools.
This is an honourable book, which aims to give a voice to one of the many displaced children who find themselves in classrooms across the UK.
Originally titled The Circus is Coming and published in 1938, Circus Shoes grabs your attention right from the start and holds you till the end of the book.
Flicka meets Hogwarts in a title that combines the pony story with dragons. This clever combination will scratch two itches for many young readers. Thankfully, this story scratches with quality.
Here are two visually exciting shaped board books for the very young. They will do more than entertain as they encourage young listeners to look carefully.
Here are two visually exciting shaped board books for the very young. They will do more than entertain as they encourage young listeners to look carefully.
Vienna just before the Second World War is the setting for this story of two boys, one Jewish, one ‘Aryan’.
Rachel, 18, in her first year at university, takes a job caring for Grace who is severely brain-damaged following an accident.
A fox cub tells the story of how his family lives on an urban railway bank, scavenging nightly for food as well as being fed by a kind old gent in the station car-park.
This is possibly the most depressing children’s book I’ve ever read.
Handa’s stories are well known from Eileen Browne’s picture books.
What more can be said about Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin and the rest? Plenty, it turns out. That hand breaking the surface of the water with Excalibur in its grasp?
Sieta is a sad little girl. She sees pictures in her mind of the good times with her parents before they sickened and died and her Auntie brought her to the place she calls ‘home now’.
Do young dinosaurs play up at bedtime?
Outrageously funny and inventive, here’s a novel with huge appeal, especially to boy readers. The story takes place in the mists of Viking times, when people rode dragons and serpents swam the sea.
An hysterically offbeat story about a family who plan an arranged marriage for their 13-year-old son, Bosworth, in order to secure a dowry from a family he has never met.
The autobiography of childhood written for children is a rare thing. Only Roald Dahl’s Boy comes immediately to mind.
This is a fairly predictable tale of a poor kid who shows a talent for Irish dancing and, through various miraculous breaks, obtains a much needed costume and consequent success.
Preschooler Lulu can’t wait to make her weekly visit to the library. She wakes her mum at six am and has her bag packed, with books to return and her library card, well before opening time.
This tale begins on the title page with Hellard’s cosy portrayal of Milo, a young mouse, curled up and fast asleep. But on waking, he is still terrified by a bad dream.
‘Monkey and me, /Monkey and me, /Monkey and me. /We went to see, /We went to see some…’
Filial love is beautifully portrayed here. The text is tender yet there’s a hint of mischief about it, well supported in the illustrations.
This debut novel is essentially a boy’s war adventure.
The Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest of the daughters of Tsar Nicholas, has always been a mysterious figure with the uncertainty surrounding her fate at Ekaterinburg where the rest of the Imperial fa
Widely praised on its original hardback publication in 2006 and going on to win that year’s Costa Children’s Book award, Set in Stone remains one of the most impressive young ad
From the ‘Gr8 reads’ series for 10-16 year-olds struggling with reading, these come with all the Barrington Stoke hallmarks – cream paper, double-spaced, clear type and a simple style designed t
In a series of highly colourful and idiosyncratically typographed spreads, this landscape picture book presents an excellently illustrated cast of 17 popular sharks and rays – from the giant, harmle
‘Huge, they were, and golden, with black slits for pupils’ – the eyes of a silver mare, drawing our heroine Katriona deeper and deeper into their depths, as ‘old tales of ghosts and magic stir
Freydis Eriksdöttir was a rare woman in the male world of the Vikings.
The author is a psychotherapist and the book is an attempt to explain why some girls go off the rails in their sexual behaviour.
The follow on to Uglies and Pretties , set in the long ahead future when teenagers at 16 are changed from ‘uglies’ through the wonders of plastic surgery which
This is a marketing manager’s dream – a teenage love story written by a teenager, a modern fable overlaid onto the Shakespearian fabric of Romeo and Juliet .
Despite critical success in the USA, M T Anderson’s novels for young people have not had a similar impact in this country.
The final movement in ‘The Dreamhunter Duet’, this remarkable book establishes Elizabeth Knox as an extraordinary talent as it sees teenage protagonist, Laura, battle as much with her own identity
This is a delightful story about a young boy and girl whose father has gone on a pilgrimage to the Great Mosque in Mecca.
The Alfred Noyes ballad is a great starting point, Christian Birmingham’s evocative cover illustration whets the reading appetite and the opening is wonderfully dramatic.
The setting is Aceh peninsula in Indonesia, Christmas Day 2004 and a chance encounter occurs between a young local boy and an American teenager, holidaying with her family in the region.
I’ve no idea who decides these things – probably Someone in Brussels* – but it says on the back cover of this novelty picture book, ‘WARNING: Small parts.
The conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants dominates this story of tragic Lady Jane Grey.
What happens when a whole country is required to be happy – by order of the King?
‘Life’s what it is… It’s up to us to make it better.’ It may not be the most original of philosophies but it is a sufficiently strong perception to motivate 14-year-old Berry Benjamin and 16
In this deeply enjoyable and attractive little picture book, an acclaimed poet and renowned artist collaborate to produce an illustrated compendium of familiar stories, made new by the style of their
Through illustrations which draw the eye, this talented author/illustrator evokes a terrific feeling of space and loneliness in this book.
Re-reading this after thirty years reminds you how good Westall was at cutting to the core and raw detail of his stories and how, just a year after the The Machine Gunners , he showed
From the ‘Gr8 reads’ series for 10-16 year-olds struggling with reading, these come with all the Barrington Stoke hallmarks – cream paper, double-spaced, clear type and a simple style designed t
A wonderfully inventive pop-up guide for railway enthusiasts of all ages by the master of paper engineering, Robert Crowther.
This is an old story in a new and brutalised setting – a futuristic Glasgow in the grip of ‘The Emergency’, war-torn, derelict, impoverished.
This author, already twice winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award for adult Science Fiction, has now written his first children’s book.
Victoria is a charming four-year-old who lives with her parents and has a happy day at school and in various activities afterwards.
Computer technology has led to new approaches and more dynamic design in print information books.
Great Uncle Sneezer has gone on a world wide wizard walk, and has somewhat unwisely told his nephew Freddy to look after his house. This he does with the help of his dragon, Odds.
Stefan Buczacki has spread himself so widely through the gardening media that even I know how to say his name.