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Books for Keeps 184 - the children's book magazine online

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BfK No. 184 - September 2010
BfK 184 September 2010

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration is from Nick Sharrat’s One Fluffy Baa-Lamb, Ten Hairy Caterpillars. Nick Sharratt is interviewed by Joanna Carey. Thanks to Alison Green Books for their help with this September cover.

Digital Edition
By clicking here you can view, print or download the fully artworked Digital Edition of BfK 184 September 2010.

BfK No. 184 Articles

A Books for Keeps extract from Stories for a Fragile Planet

From Stories for a Fragile Planet
Rick Riordan - our featured author this week

2010 has already proved a phenomenal year for Rick Riordan...
Editorial – September 2010

News and comment from the Editor.
David Almond: a retrospective

Clive Barnes assesses Almond’s contribution to children’s
literature.
Ten of the Best Gothic Novels

Geraldine Brennan chooses her top ten titles.
BfK BASICS: helping your child enjoy books and reading

Liz Attenborough advises how to share books with babies.
Windows into Illustration: Eric Hill

Eric Hill on his now classic title, Where’s Spot?
Authorgraph No.184: Nick Sharratt

Nick Sharratt is interviewed by Joanna Carey.
Pullman’s Progress

Nicholas Tucker discusses Pullman’s
views on religion.
Briefing – September 2010

News * Exhibitions * Awards * Obituary
Hal’s Reading Diary – September 2010

Roger Mills on Hal’s increasing motivation to read.
I Wish I’d Written… Tom’s Midnight Garden

Chris Priestley chooses Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden.
Good Reads: St Stithians Girls’ Preparatory School, South Africa

Reviews from pupils of St Stithians Girls’ Preparatory School, Randburg, South Africa.
Classics in Short No.83: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Brian Alderson on Mark Twain’s The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Books for Keeps extract from Dancing in the Dark

From Dancing in the Dark
A Books for Keeps extract from Boy Called M.O.U.S.E.

From Boy Called M.O.U.S.E.
Michael Rosen publishes Big Book of Bad Things

Thursday 7 October is National Poetry Day and Books for Keeps talks to Michael Rosen

Books of 2010 chosen by the new School Librarian Of The Year

Books for Keeps asked Duncan Wright and Kevin Sheehan to select their books of 2010
A Books for Keeps extract from Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero

A new novel by Rick Riordan.
A Books for Keeps extract from Worse Things Happen At Sea!

From Worse Things Happen At Sea!
Books for Hallowe'en

Books for Keeps’ selection of Hallowe'en titles.
A Books for Keeps extract from Pull Out All The Stops!

From Pull Out All The Stops! by Geraldine McCaughrean

Editor's Choice

The 10pm Question
Kate De Goldi
(Templar Fiction)
4

12-year-old Frankie’s mum works from home making cakes for restaurants. Frankie, who suffers from chronic anxiety and imagines every worst case scenario is about to happen, takes comfort in asking her at bedtime about his latest anxieties – hence...

read more

New Talent

Apple Pie ABC
Alison Murray
(Orchard Books)
4

According to the Opies, the nursery rhyme ‘A was an apple-pie’ was ‘well known in the reign of Charles II’ and by the nineteenth century ‘was a favourite for ABC instruction’. Kate Greenaway’s A Apple Pie, for example, which was...

read more

All Children's Book Reviews in BfK No. 184

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

Under 5s

  • Look Out Leon
    Jez Alborough
    5

  • The Fly
    Petr Horácek
    5

  • My Sister is an Alien
    Rachel Bright
    4

  • Baby Ruby Bawled
    Malaika Rose Stanley
    4

  • Apple Pie ABC
    Alison Murray
    4

  • The Night Iceberg
    Helen Stephens
    4

  • Bedtime Hullabaloo!
    David Conway
    3

  • Ants in Your Pants!
    Julia Jarman
    3

  • Bumping Buffalo
    Mwenye Hadithi
    3

  • A Walk in the Wild Woods
    Lis Jones
    3

  • The Sunflower Sword
    Mark Sperring
    3

  • The Great Big Book of Families
    Mary Hoffman
    3

Ages 5-8

  • April Underhill, Tooth Fairy
    Bob Graham
    5

  • E is for Ethiopia ¦ S is for South Africa
    Ashenafi Gudeta
    5

  • Gracie the Lighthouse Cat
    Ruth Brown
    4

  • Mary’s Penny
    Tanya Landman
    3

  • Ella Moves House
    Angela Hassall
    3

  • The Day the Rains Fell
    Anne Faundez
    3

  • Thomas the Tank Engine - 65th anniversary edition
    Rev W Awdry
    3

  • My Favourite Animal Families
    Steve Bloom
    3

Ages 8-10

  • My Uncle's Dunkirk
    Mick Manning
    Brita Granström
    5

  • Goal!
    Mina Javaherbin
    3

  • Road Horse
    Caroline Binch
    3

  • Ship's Cat Doris
    Jane Simmons
    3

  • Bitter Chocolate
    Sally Grindley
    3

  • How Ali Ferguson Saved Houdini
    Elen Caldecott
    3

  • Would You Believe… two cyclists invented the aeroplane?! ¦ ... in Mexico, people picnic at Granny's grave?! ¦ ... bed testers get paid to sleep?! ¦ ... Vatican City is a country?!
    Richard Platt
    3

  • Dead Man's Cove
    Lauren St John
    2

  • Dewey: The true story of a world famous library cat
    Vicki Myron
    2

Ages 10-14

  • An Elephant in the Garden
    Michael Morpurgo
    5

  • Wasted
    Nicola Morgan
    5

  • A Web of Air
    Philip Reeve
    5

  • Annexed
    Sharon Dogar
    5

  • My Name is Mina
    David Almond
    5

  • Reckless
    Cornelia Funke
    5

  • The 10pm Question
    Kate De Goldi
    4

  • Dark Goddess
    Sarwat Chadda
    4

  • The Lambton Curse
    Malachy Doyle
    3

  • Theodore Boone
    John Grisham
    3

  • Spirit Hunter
    Katy Moran
    3

  • Mistress of the Storm
    M L Welsh
    3

  • Space Crime Conspiracy
    Gareth P Jones
    3

  • Sisters Red
    Jackson Pearce
    3

  • Reducing the Carbon Footprint ¦ Waste Disposal ¦ Climate Change ¦ Water ¦ Resources ¦ Feeding the World
    Anne Rooney
    3

  • Me, Myself and I: All about sex and puberty
    Louise Spilsbury
    3

  • The Moonstone Legacy
    Diana de Gunzburg
    Tony Wild
    1

Ages 14+

  • Losing It
    5

  • Burning Mountain
    L J Adlington
    5

  • The Last Summer of the Death Warriors
    Francisco X Stork
    5

  • I'm Not Scared
    Niccolo Ammaniti
    4

  • Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco
    Sue Limb
    4

  • Pretty Monsters
    Kelly Link
    4

  • Beautiful Malice
    Rebecca James
    3

  • White Cat
    Holly Black
    3

  • The Glass Demon
    Helen Grant
    3

  • Lies
    Michael Grant
    3

  • Monsters of Men
    Patrick Ness
    3

Books About Children's Books

  • Children’s Literature and Social Change. Some Case Studies from Barbara Hofland to Philip Pullman
    Dennis Butts
    4

  • School Blues
    Daniel Pennac
    4

  • Spoilt Rotten: the Toxic Cult of Sentimentality
    Theodore Dalrymple
    0

BfK News

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.

read more...
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

read more...
SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2018 EDUCATIONAL WRITERS’ AWARD

Canvases, Codes, Clean Water & Empathy

read more...
COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD 2018: SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

Costa have announced the shortlist for the 2018 Costa Children’s Book Award. In a record year for submissions, four novels have made it onto a strong shortlist.

read more...
PATRICE LAWRENCE AND DARREN CHETTY TO JUDGE 2019 LITTLE REBELS AWARD

Little Rebels prize logoAward-winning YA author Patrice Lawrence and Books for Keeps contributor Darren Chetty have been named as judges of the 2019 Little Rebels Award. The Little Rebels Award celebrates children’s books for readers age 0-12 which promote social equality and social justice.

read more...
SHORTLISTS ANNOUNCED FOR BLUE PETER BOOK AWARDS

The shortlists have been announced for the 2019 Blue Peter Book Awards. They are:

Best book with facts

The Element in the Room by Mike Barfield and illustrated by Lauren Humphry, Laurence King Publishing

The Colours of History by Clive Gifford and Marc-Etienne Peintre, QED Publishing

Professor Astro Cat's Human Body Odyssey by Dominic Walliman and Ben Newman, Flying Eye Books

read more...
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