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Books for Keeps 160 - the children's book magazine online

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BfK No. 160 - September 2006

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration by Getty Images is from Tim Bowler’s Frozen Fire. Tim Bowler is interviewed by Geoff Fox. Thanks to Oxford University Press for their help with this September cover.

BfK No. 160 Articles

Editorial - September 2006

News and comment from the Editor.
Diversity Matters: growing markets in children’s publishing - How Committed Are Publishers to Publishing Black Writers?

Malorie Blackman describes her experiences of being published.
Early Years Reading: Anna Wilson’s ‘Nina Fairy Ballerina’ series

Alison Kelly explores Anna Wilson's 'Nina Fairy Ballerina' series.
Diversity Matters: growing markets in children’s publishing - Conference Report

Shereen Pandit reports on her impressions.
Waiting for a Jamie Oliver: Beyond bog-standard literacy

Henrietta Dombey assesses the arguments.
Authorgraph No.160: Tim Bowler

Tim Bowler interviewed by Geoff Fox.
BfK Briefing - September 2006

News * Letters to the Editor * Obituary
Useful Organisations No.46: Bayard magazines for children

StoryBox, AdventureBox and StoryBox monthly magazines for children.
Hal’s Reading Diary – September 2006

Roger Mills on Hal’s science library.
I Wish I’d Written… Fly By Night

Meg Rosoff chooses Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night.
Good Reads: King Edward VI Aston School

Reviews from King Edward VI Aston School, Birmingham.
Classics in Short No.59: The Jungle Books

Brian Alderson on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books.

Editor's Choice

The Cat Who Wanted to Go Home
Jill Tomlinson
(Egmont Books Ltd)
5

Best known for The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark , Jill Tomlinson excelled at warmly written, humorous young fiction titles featuring young animals faced with a challenge. Now her text for The Cat Who Wanted to Go Home...

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New Talent

Beast
Ally Kennen
(Marion Lloyd Books)
4

17-year-old Stephen is due to leave his foster family of four years, the Reynolds, and all his social worker can offer him as a place to live is St Mark’s, the rough hostel for homeless people where, ironically, Stephen’s biological father once...

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All Children's Book Reviews in BfK No. 160

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

Under 5s

  • The Runaway Dinner
    Allan Ahlberg
    5

  • Clip-Clop
    Nicola Smee
    5

  • 006 and a Bit
    Kes Gray
    5

  • The Cat Who Wanted to Go Home
    Jill Tomlinson
    5

  • Little Fish
    Guido Van Genechten
    4

  • Happy Birthday, Jamela!
    Niki Daly
    4

  • Un Deux Trois: First French Rhymes
    3

  • Animal Moves; Animal Noises
    Dawn Apperley
    3

  • All My Friends
    Gill Lobel
    3

  • Mrs Pepperpot Learns to Swim; Mrs Pepperpot Minds The Baby
    Alf Prøysen
    2

Ages 5-8

  • Fly, Pigeon, Fly!
    John Henderson
    Julia Donaldson
    5

  • Running Shoes
    Frederick Lipp
    4

  • My First Book of Garden Birds
    Mike Unwin
    4

  • The Great Tug of War
    Beverley Naidoo
    4

  • Four Red Apples
    David McKee
    4

  • Death in a Nut
    Eric Maddern
    3

Ages 8-10

  • War With Troy: Teacher's Guide; War With Troy: The Story of Achilles
    Grant Bage
    Jennie Dunn
    Bob Lister
    5

  • Terribly True Crime Stories; Terribly True Spy Stories
    Terry Deary
    4

  • The Boy With The Lightning Feet
    Sally Gardner
    4

  • A Horse Called El Dorado
    Kevin Kiely
    3

  • The Awful Tale of Agatha Bilke
    Sian Pattenden
    2

  • Acid Rain
    Lucy Poddington
    1

Ages 10-14

  • Tanglewreck
    Jeanette Winterson
    5

  • Smokescreen
    Bernard Ashley
    5

  • Nothing Scares Me
    Gene Kemp
    5

  • Into the Woods
    Lyn Gardner
    5

  • Does My Head Look Big In This?
    Randa Abdel-Fattah
    5

  • Coster Girls & Mudlarks: Street voices from Victorian London
    5

  • The Tide Knot
    Helen Dunmore
    4

  • Obesity
    Michaela Miller
    4

  • My Swordhand Is Singing
    Marcus Sedgwick
    4

  • Marco's Pendulum
    Thom Madley
    4

  • Half Moon Investigations
    Eoin Colfer
    4

  • Can You Feel The Force?
    Richard Hammond
    4

  • Blade of Fire
    Stuart Hill
    4

  • '...startled by his furry shorts!' Fab New Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
    Louise Rennison
    4

  • The Willow Man
    Sue Purkiss
    3

  • The Telling Pool
    David Clement-Davies
    3

  • Rise of The Blood Moon
    Alan Gibbons
    3

  • How the Hangman Lost His Heart
    K M Grant
    3

  • Fourth Horseman, The
    Kate Thompson
    3

  • The Black Tattoo
    Sam Enthoven
    3

  • The Sirens of Surrentum
    Caroline Lawrence
    1

Ages 14+

  • Small-Minded Giants
    Oisín McGann
    5

  • Centre of my World
    Andreas Steinhöfel
    5

  • A Brief Chapter in my Impossible Life
    Dana Reinhardt
    4

  • Beast
    Ally Kennen
    4

  • Shining On
    3

  • Malcolm X
    Michael Benson
    3

  • Damage
    Sue Mayfield
    3

  • Angel Blood
    John Singleton
    3

  • Kidulthood
    Jim Eldridge
    2

Books About Children's Books

  • Making of Me,The. A writer's childhood
    Robert Westall
    4

  • Wand in the Word, The: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy
    3

BfK News

BRANFORD BOASE AWARD SHORTLIST 2019

The children’s authors to watch: shortlist for the 2019 Branford Boase Award announced

Branford Boase Award shortlist 2019

read more...
THE YEAR'S BEST POETRY FOR CHILDREN: CLiPPA 2019 SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) has announced the 2019 shortlist for their poetry award, CLiPPA (The Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award). Children’s poetry is booming and there were a record number of entries for the CLiPPA, the only award for children’s poetry.

read more...
THE LITTLE REBELS AWARD SHORTLIST 2019

Little Rebels prize logoThe shortlist for the 2019 Little Rebels Award has been announced. Seven books have made the list with war and conflict recurring themes.

read more...
SHORTLISTS FOR 2019 CILIP CARNEGIE AND KATE GREENAWAY MEDALS

The shortlists for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals have been announced. Selected by volunteer Youth Librarians from longlists of 20 books per medal, there are eight on each shortlist.

Alongside previously shortlisted authors and illustrators, there are newcomers on each shortlist, and as the poetry boom for young readers continues, three verse novels make the Carnegie shortlist by US authors Elizabeth Acevedo, Kwame Alexander and Jason Reynolds.

The 2019 shortlists are as follows:

read more...
BLUE PETER BOOK AWARD WINNERS 2019

The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Raúf and The Colours of History by Clive Gifford, illustrated by Marc-Etienne Peintre, have been revealed as the 2019 Blue Peter Book Award winners.

read more...
LONGLISTS FOR 2019 CILIP CARNEGIE AND KATE GREENAWAY MEDALS ANNOUNCED

The longlists for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals have been announced. Members of YLG have selected 20 books for each list from no less than 254 nominations.

read more...
WINNERS OF THE LAUGH OUT LOUD BOOK AWARDS 2019

Funny Women win the Lollies!

Lollies winners 2019

Elys Dolan, Emer Stamp and Tom Gates creator Liz Pichon have been named the winners of the 2019 Laugh Out Loud Awards, or Lollies.

read more...
HILARY MCKAY WINS COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD WITH ‘PERFECT’ NOVEL

Hilary McKay has won the Costa Children’s Book Award for the second time for The Skylarks’ War, a story following the loves and losses of a family growing up against the backdrop of World War One. The judges described The Skylarks’ War as ‘as perfect a novel as you could ever want to read’. She receives £5,000 and her book is now eligible for the ultimate prize - the 2018 Costa Book of the Year.

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FAR FROM HOME WINS THE 2018 EDUCATIONAL WRITERS’ AWARD

The winner of the 2018 Educational Writers’ Award, the UK’s sole award for creative educational writing, is Far From Home: Refugees and Migrants Fleeing War, Persecution and Poverty by Cath Senker, a topical and richly illustrated book which sensitively examines the root causes of mass migrations of people in the 21st century.

Cath Senker wins EWA 2018

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SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2018 EDUCATIONAL WRITERS’ AWARD

Canvases, Codes, Clean Water & Empathy

read more...
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