Home
  • Home
  • Latest Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Authors & Artists
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Forums
  • Search

Books for Keeps 133 - the children's book magazine online

  • View
  • Rearrange

Digital version – browse, print or download

Can't see the preview?
Click here!

How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.

BfK Newsletter

Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!

BfK No. 133 - March 2002

Cover Story
This issue's cover is from Celia Ree's Sorceress. Celia Rees is interviewed by Stephanie Nettell. Thanks to Bloomsbury Children's Books for their help with this March cover.

BfK No. 133 Articles

Editorial - March 2002

News and comment from the Editor.
Under Taliban Rule

Shereen Pandit on Deborah Ellis's The Breadwinner.
The Depiction of Arabs in Children's Literature

Ann Lazim on the need for positive images.
Standing Up to Protest

Gaye Hiçyilmaz on dissent as a theme in her books.
Peter on the Couch

Rob Wood on Peter Pan as a 'puer aeternus' archetype.
Hal's Reading Diary - March 2002

Roger Mills on his one-year-old's response to books.
Authorgraph No.133: Celia Rees

Celia Rees interviewed by Stephanie Nettell.
Everyone's Home Library

Children's Laureate, Anne Fine, on how every child can own books.
BfK Briefing - March 2002

News * Events * Awards * Publications * Letters to the Editor
Useful Organisations No.20: Realbook News

Bi-annual publication to help adults select picture books for children learning English as a second language.
I Wish I'd Written... Picture This

Jacqueline Wilson chooses Alison Jay's Picture This.
Good Reads: Duke Street Primary School

Reviews from pupils of Duke Street Primary School, Chorley, Lancashire.
Classics in Short No.32: Milly-Molly-Mandy

Brian Alderson on Joyce Lankester Brisley's Milly-Molly-Mandy.

Editor's Choice

Mirrors
(HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks)
4

As Cooling points out in her introduction to this newly commissioned collection of short stories, 'mirrors and reflections have played their part in stories from the ancient tales...to today'. It kicks off, appropriately, with Elizabeth Laird's...

read more

New Talent

Mortal Engines
Philip Reeve
(Scholastic)
5

It's a town eat town world and Tom, an apprentice historian, has been brought up to believe that municipal Darwinsim is a noble and beautiful system. He joins the celebrations as the great traction city of London speeds across the Out-Country...

read more

All Children's Book Reviews in BfK No. 133

  • Under 5s
  • Ages 5-8
  • Ages 8-10
  • Ages 10-14
  • Books About Children's Books

Under 5s

  • Tiny
    Paul Rogers
    4

  • I Want to be a Cowgirl
    Jeanne Willis
    4

  • Who's Poorly Too?
    Kes Gray
    4

  • The Rainbow Book of Nursery Rhymes
    Sam Childs
    4

  • Shaggy Dog and the Terrible Itch
    David Bedford
    3

  • Bathtime PiggyWiggy
    Christyan Fox
    Diane Fox
    3

  • Noisy Dog
    Selina Young
    3

  • The Little Penguin
    A J Wood
    3

  • Saving Sinbad!
    Michael Foreman
    3

  • Something Wonderful
    Jenny Nimmo
    3

  • Small
    Clara Vulliamy
    3

Ages 5-8

  • Come Back to Me My Boomerang; The Box Room; Zoo of Dreams; Fluff and Other Stuff
    John Agard
    5

  • Crocodile: Disappearing Dragon
    Jonathan London
    4

  • Remarkable Animals
    Tony Meeuwissen
    4

  • George Shrinks
    William Joyce
    4

  • Silver Shoes
    Caroline Binch
    4

  • Sink or Swim
    Ghillian Potts
    3

  • Pip
    Tony Mitton
    3

  • Cunning Cat Tales; Wicked Wolf Tales
    3

  • How the Camel got his Hump
    Rudyard Kipling
    3

  • Fire and Stone, Wind and Tide
    2

Ages 8-10

  • World War I
    Simon Adams
    5

  • Ludwig van Beethoven; Wolfgang Mozart
    Yann Walcker
    5

  • The Lion Bible: Everlasting Stories; The Kingfisher Children's Bible
    5

  • Skellig
    David Almond
    5

  • The Big Book of Nonsense
    Colin West
    5

  • A Poem For Everyone: A Treasury of Poems About People
    5

  • Guide to Savage Earth
    Trevor Day
    4

  • Voice of Freedom: A story about Frederick Douglass
    Maryann N Weidt
    4

  • A Century of Children's Poems
    4

  • The Moon Has Got His Pants On and Other Poems
    Steve Turner
    4

  • Toro! Toro!
    Michael Morpurgo
    3

  • Rob the Roman Gets Eaten by a Lion, Nearly; Trev the Tudor Gets the Chop
    Scoular Anderson
    3

  • My Mum's Going to Explode!
    Jeremy Strong
    3

  • Sink or Swim
    Ghillian Potts
    3

  • A Journey Through Time
    Selina Wood
    3

  • The Boy Who Could Fly
    Sally Gardner
    3

  • Ivor the Invisible
    Raymond Briggs
    3

  • Football
    Robert Crowther
    2

  • The Kingfisher Facts and Records Book of Space
    Clive Gifford
    1

Ages 10-14

  • The Ropemaker
    Peter Dickinson
    5

  • Mortal Engines
    Philip Reeve
    5

  • Stop the Train
    Geraldine McCaughrean
    5

  • The Ruby in the Smoke
    Philip Pullman
    5

  • Hitler's Daughter
    Jackie French
    5

  • Out of Order: between-age poems
    5

  • Saffy's Angel
    Hilary McKay
    5

  • Up on Cloud Nine
    Anne Fine
    5

  • Calling a Dead Man
    Gillian Cross
    4

  • For Maritsa, with love
    Enid Richemont
    4

  • Wrecked
    Robert Swindells
    4

  • When a Girl is Born
    Pamela Grant
    4

  • Poems from Many Cultures: Poetry Collection 4
    4

  • Mirrors
    4

  • Refugee Boy
    Benjamin Zephaniah
    3

  • Mates, Dates and Portobello Princesses
    Cathy Hopkins
    3

  • If Only; Seeing Red; Go For It!
    Sue Vyner
    3

  • Deadly!
    Morris Gleitzman
    Paul Jennings
    3

  • Julie and Me... and Michael Owen Makes Three
    Alan Gibbons
    3

  • Grandma You're Dead!
    Sharon O Tai
    3

  • Firsts: The Livewire Book of British Women Achievers
    Kate Murphy
    3

  • The Flight of the Emu
    Rachel Anderson
    3

  • Me and My Shadow
    Joan Lingard
    3

  • Falling for Joshua
    Brian Keaney
    2

  • The Young Oxford Encyclopedia of Science
    2

  • Out of the Blue
    Sue Welford
    2

  • The Fire Within
    Chris D'Lacey
    2

Books About Children's Books

  • Reading Talk
    Aidan Chambers
    4

  • Chewing the Cud
    Dick King-Smith
    3

BfK News

EMPATHYLAB ANNOUNCES 2020 READ FOR EMPATHY BOOK COLLECTION

Raising A Generation of Empathic Citizens

Empathy Day logo

read more...
JASBINDER BILAN WINS COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD WITH HER DEBUT NOVEL

Jasbinder Bilan

read more...
COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD 2019: SHORTLIST FEATURES

Former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman and acclaimed author Jenny Downham are on the shortlist for the 2019 Costa Children’s Book Award alongside newcomers Jasbinder Bilan and Nicholas Downing.

Costa Book Awards logo

Click the links below to read new Books for Keeps feature articles on each of the shortlisted authors.

read more...
THE IBBY LIST OF OUSTANDING BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Dr Rebecca Butler writes.

Readers of Books for Keeps will remember that IBBY (the International Board on Books for Young People) arranges every two years a competition to identify the very best books for young readers featuring disability or designed to be read by young people with disabilities. Last time this list was compiled in 2017/18 I was the coordinator for the UK section.

read more...
ALASTAIR HUMPHREYS’ GREAT ADVENTURERS WINS THE 2019 EDUCATIONAL WRITERS’ AWARD

The winner of the 2019 Educational Writers’ Award is Alastair Humphreys’ Great Adventurers: The Incredible Expeditions of 20 Explorers (Big Picture Press).

Alastair Humphreys Great Adventures

read more...
BLACKMAN AND DOWNHAM ON SHORTLIST FOR 2019 COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD

Former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman and acclaimed author Jenny Downham are on the shortlist for the 2019 Costa Children’s Book Award, which was announced today, 26th November 2020. Alongside them on the list are newcomers Jasbinder Bilan and Nicholas Downing, both of whom are published by Chicken House.

The 2019 Costa Children’s Award shortlist

read more...
2019 ALCS EDUCATIONAL WRITERS’ AWARD SHORTLIST

Shortlist announced for the UK’s only award for creative educational writing

The Society of Authors and the Authors’ Licensing& Collecting Society have announced the shortlist for the 2019 ALCS Educational Writers’ Award, the UK’s only award for educational writing which stimulates and enhances the learning experience.

read more...
‘INSPIRING’: CONTENDERS FOR THE 2020 BLUE PETER BOOK AWARDS REVEALED

Blue Peter Book Award logo

Six books have made it onto the shortlists for the 2020 Blue Peter Book Awards. There are two categories: Best Story, and – in non-fiction November – Best Book with Facts.

read more...
NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2020 CARNEGIE AND KATE GREENAWAY MEDALS

And we’re off… the nominations for the 2020 Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals are announced today, Monday 4th November.

read more...
2020 UKLA BOOK AWARDS THE LONGLISTS

UKLA Awards

A record number of submissions and a new category to highlight information books marks the 12th longlists for the UKLA Awards, the only national awards judged by active classroom teachers.

read more...
more
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Help/FAQ
  • My Account