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

Books for Keeps 155 - 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. 155 - November 2005

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration features Anthony Horowitz’s Raven’s Gate. Anthony Horowitz is interviewed by Nicholas Tucker. Thanks to Walker Books for their help with this November cover.

BfK No. 155 Articles

Editorial - November 2005

News and comment from the Editor.
Books as Gifts at Christmas

Rosemary Stones suggests books for giving.
Counting Books

Sheila Ebbutt on books that count.
The CLPE Poetry Prize 2005

Tony Mitton explains the judging process.
BfK Briefing - November 2005

Awards * News * Letter to the Editor * Obituary
Useful Organisations No.41: National Centre for Language & Literacy

Extensive collection of children's books and resources, plus conferences, courses, publications and membership scheme.
Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award

Andrew Bailey discusses Haf Davies' 'Beans, Babes?'
Good Reads: Ballyclare High School, County Antrim

Reviews from Ballyclare High School, County Antrim.
Authorgraph No.155: Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz interviewed by Nicholas Tucker.
I Wish I'd Written... Le Grand Meaulnes

Sally Gardner chooses Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes.
Hal's Reading Diary - November 2005

Roger Mills has more thoughts on the nature of humour.
Classics in Short No.54: Selected Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Brian Alderson on the Brothers Grimm's Selected Tales.

Editor's Choice

Killer Gorilla
Jeanne Willis
(Andersen Press)
5

When mouse loses her baby it seems that things couldn’t get any worse – that is until a huge, scary gorilla starts chasing after her. Mouse runs and runs – to China, to America, to Australia – with the gorilla in hot pursuit. Finally she reaches...

read more

New Talent

Elsewhere
Gabrielle Zevin
(Bloomsbury Publishing PLC)
5

15-year-old Liz is ‘just a girl who forgot to look both ways before she crossed the street’. It comes as a shock to her that she is in fact dead and that everyone else on the SS Nile cruising towards the land of Elsewhere is also dead. Liz is met...

read more

All Children's Book Reviews in BfK No. 155

  • Under 5s
  • Ages 5-8
  • Ages 8-10
  • Ages 10-14
  • Ages 14+

Under 5s

  • Piglet and Mama
    Margaret Wild
    5

  • Big Blue Engine ¦ Big Red Fire Engine ¦ Big Yellow Taxi ¦ Little Red Plane
    Ken Wilson-Max
    5

  • Killer Gorilla
    Jeanne Willis
    5

  • for sure! for sure! ¦ Winnie at the Seaside
    Hans Christian Andersen
    4

  • Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound, A
    John Irving
    4

  • Otter's First Swim, An
    Adrienne Kennaway
    4

  • Joe's Dog
    Angela Joy
    4

  • Bears
    Ruth Krauss
    4

  • Where's My Darling Daughter?
    Mij Kelly
    3

  • Princess and the Rainbow Coat, The
    3

  • Me and My Brother
    Caroline Uff
    3

  • Little, Little House, The
    Jessica Souhami
    3

  • I Love My Daddy; I Love My Mummy
    Sebastien Braun
    3

  • Buzz Bumble to the Rescue
    Lynn E Hazen
    3

  • Baby Finds; Baby Goes; Baby Noises; Baby Plays
    Derek Brazell
    3

Ages 5-8

  • We're Riding on a Caravan: An Adventure on the Silk Road
    Laurie Krebs
    5

  • Pigs Might Fly!
    Steve Cox
    Jonathan Emmett
    4

  • Night-time Tale
    Ruth Brown
    4

  • Materials
    Clive Gifford
    4

  • Dog Called Whatnot, A; Mummy Family Find Fame, The
    Linda Newbery
    3

  • Just Like Sisters
    Angela McAllister
    3

  • Birds; Reptiles
    Sue Malyan
    2

Ages 8-10

  • Girl Who Married a Lion, The (Folk Tales from Africa)
    Alexander McCall Smith
    5

  • Action Jackson
    Jan Greenberg
    Sandra Jordan
    5

  • Tree House, The
    Gillian Cross
    4

  • Runny Babbit
    Shel Silverstein
    4

  • Old Tom; Old Tom at the Beach
    Leigh Hobbs
    4

  • Itching for a Fight
    Joel Snape
    4

  • Corydon and the Island of Monsters
    Tobias Druitt
    4

  • Come Christmas
    Eleanor Farjeon
    4

  • Beasts of Clawstone Castle, The
    Eva Ibbotson
    4

  • Ancient Rome
    Stewart Ross
    4

  • Marie Antoinette
    Katie Daynes
    3

  • Cal and the Amazing Anti-Gravity Machine
    Richard Hamilton
    3

Ages 10-14

  • Zip's Apollo
    Philip Ridley
    5

  • White Darkness, The
    Geraldine McCaughrean
    5

  • Martin Luther King, Jr
    Amy Pastan
    5

  • How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare
    Paul Jennings
    5

  • Whitaker's World of Facts
    Russell Ash
    4

  • War: Stories of Conflict
    4

  • Usborne Introduction to the Second World War, The
    Paul Dowswell
    4

  • Spy Force Revealed; Time and Space Machine, The
    Deborah Abela
    4

  • Seeker
    William Nicholson
    4

  • I, Coriander
    Sally Gardner
    4

  • How Cool Stuff Works
    Chris Woodford
    4

  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
    J K Rowling
    4

  • Gladiatrix
    Frances Hendry
    4

  • Flowing Queen, The
    Kai Meyer
    4

  • Fire Pony
    Rodman Philbrick
    4

  • The Bull Raid
    Carlo Gébler
    4

  • Breakfast at Sadie's
    Lee Weatherly
    4

  • Ten Days to Zero
    Bernard Ashley
    3

  • So Below: Key to the City
    Matt Whyman
    3

  • Shadewell Shenanigans, The
    David Lee Stone
    3

  • Rainbow Opera, The
    Elizabeth Knox
    3

  • Lord Loss
    Darren Shan
    3

  • Leonardo and the Death Machine
    Robert J Harris
    3

  • Bridge to the Stars, A
    Henning Mankell
    3

  • Saint of Dragons, The
    Jason Hightman
    2

  • Burying Beetle, The
    Ann Kelley
    2

Ages 14+

  • Elsewhere
    Gabrielle Zevin
    5

  • Scientists Anonymous
    Patricia Fara
    4

  • Ithaka
    Adèle Geras
    4

  • The Drowning
    Valerie Mendes
    4

  • Does Snogging Count as Exercise?
    Helen Salter
    4

  • Spiked!
    Sandra Glover
    3

  • Chanda's Secrets
    Allan Stratton
    3

BfK News

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...
JESSICA LOVE NAMED WINNER OF THE KLAUS FLUGGE PRIZE 2019 FOR JULIAN IS A MERMAID

Jessica Love

read more...
LOLLIES 2020 SHORTLIST THE YEAR’S FUNNIEST CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Michael Rosen, children’s novelist, poet and former Children’s Laureate, has announced the shortlist for the 2020 Laugh Out Loud Awards (The Lollies), the awards that celebrate the funniest children’s books.

Lollies logo

read more...
HOOD, RUNDELL AND REYNOLDS UKLA BOOK AWARD WINNERS 2019

Morag Hood, Katherine Rundell and Jason Reynolds have been announced as the winners of the UKLA Book Awards 2019 for I Am Bat, The Explorer and Long Way Down respectively.

read more...
CATHERINE JOHNSON WINS LITTLE REBELS CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD

The Alliance of Radical Booksellers (ARB) is delighted to announce that the winner of this year’s Little Rebels Children’s Book Award for Radical Fiction is Catherine Johnson for her book, Freedom (Scholastic 2018).

Catherine Johnsonn photo Andy Donohoe

read more...
CRESSIDA COWELL ANNOUNCED AS NEW WATERSTONES CHILDREN’S LAUREATE

‘Books are transformative because of their unique ability to develop three key magical powers: intelligence, creativity and, most important of all, empathy. Words are power; let’s take magic seriously.’ Cressida Cowell, Waterstones Children’s Laureate

read more...
STEVEN CAMDEN WINS CLiPPA 2019

Steven Camden photo by Ellie Kurttz

read more...
MUHAMMAD KHAN WINS 20TH BRANFORD BOASE AWARD

The winner of the 2019 Branford Boase Award for outstanding debut novel for children is Muhammad Khan for his YA novel I Am Thunder. Set up in memory of author Henrietta Branford and her editor Wendy Boase who both died in 1999, the award also recognizes his editor Lucy Pearse of Macmillan Children’s Books.

read more...
SLA School Librarian of the Year 2019 Announced

Ros Harding School Librarian of the Year

Ros Harding of The King’s School Chester has been awarded the honour of the School Librarian of the Year 2019. 2019 YA Book Prize winner Sara Barnard presented Ros Harding with her award at a special ceremony at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel, Kensington, London Kensington on 27 June.

read more...
The Children's Book Award 2019

Earlier this month, Arree Chung was named overall winner of The Children’s Book Award 2019. His book Mixed, which he wrote and illustrated, also won the Books for Younger Children category before going on to win the overall prize.

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