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Becky Bananas - This is your Life!

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BfK No. 105 - July 1997

Cover Story
This issue’s cover is from the gift edition of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory illustrated by Quentin Blake and with design and typography by Peter Campbell. The successful collaboration between Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake has played an important part in the popularity of Dahl’s work over the last fifteen years. Blake’s unmistakable artwork truly complements Dahl’s writing. His economical, amiable, illustrative style balances out Dahl’s often expansive language. And the liveliness, humour and pathos of the drawings offer a softer side to Dahl’s sometimes gloriously grotesque, sometimes cruel descriptions of his characters.

Thanks to Penguin Children’s Books for their help in producing this July cover which commemorates the thirty years anniversary of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s first UK publication.

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Becky Bananas - This is your Life!

Jean Ure
Illustrated by Stephen Player and Mick Brownfield
(Collins)
176pp, 978-0001856387, RRP £9.99, Hardcover
10-14 Middle/Secondary
Buy "Becky Bananas: This Is Your Life!" on Amazon

Becky's ultimate ambition is to become a famous ballerina and be on This Is Your Life and the imagined programme and guests run through the book as she imagines her future. Her immediate ambition, though, is to get to be 12 and go to Wonderland in Florida - but she suffers from acute myeloid leukaemia so she might not reach the age of 12. There are enough hints dropped in the early stages of the book for the careful reader to recognise that Becky is ill but we don't learn the full truth until page 121. Ure deals with the medical details with an assured lightness of touch and Becky remains spirited to her, and the book's, end. Two illustrators with quite distinctive styles are used and the book should appeal across a wide age range.

Reviewer: 
Steve Rosson
4
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