Time for a Tale
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Cover Story
This issue's cover is a photograph of Anne Frank whose diary is discussed by Michael Rosen fifty years after its first publication. Following the arrest of the Frank family and their companions, the secret annex in Amsterdam where they had been in hiding was locked up and everybody forbidden to enter it, since Jewish possessions became Nazi property and were carted away. Before this happened, the young woman, Miep Gies, who had provided those in hiding with food and who had a second key to the annex, risked herself once more by entering it. Miep retrieved Anne's diary from the devastation together with the Frank family photograph album.
Thanks to Penguin Children's Books for help in reproducing this cover.
Time for a Tale
Illustrated by Rowan Barnes-Murphy
Ten stories provide a varied collection of 'bedtime tales' for five to (perhaps) seven-year-olds. The large-ish print might also make the book accessible to newly-fluent readers in this age-group. The most successful of these tales are those dealing with clever tricksters, such as 'Little Polly Riding Hood' by Catherine Storr. The volume also contains Aingelda Ardizzone's 'The Little Girl and the Tiny Doll', and stories by Joan Aiken and Margaret Mayo. The best of these stories may provide a good 'first taste' for those who haven't encountered them before, but overall I found this particular collection rather arbitrary and unfocused.

