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Books for Keeps 192 - the children's book magazine online

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BfK No. 192 - January 2012
BfK 192 January 2012

This issue’s cover illustration is from The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan. Thanks to David Fickling Books for their help with this January cover.

Digital Edition
By clicking here you can view, print or download the fully artworked Digital Edition of BfK 192January 2012 .

BfK No. 192 Articles

Celia Rees Q and A

Celia Rees answers questions on her new novel This is Not Forgiveness
January 2012 Editorial

Editorial
The Best Children’s Books of 2011

A round-up of fiction, picture books, poetry and non-fiction titles.
Brilliant Bookshops: The Children's Bookshop Huddersfield

Sonia Benster on her bookshop.
Emma Chichester Clark Windows into Illustration

Emma Chichester Clark on how she went about illustrating
‘Wagtail Town’.
Richard Dawkins: The Magic of Reality

Sue Unstead interviews Richard Dawkins.
Ten of the Best Horse and Pony Books

Jane Badger chooses her top ten.
Authorgraph 192 - Margo Lanagan

Margo Lanagan interviewed by Nicholas Tucker.
The Legacy of the Arabian Nights

Neil Philip discusses Marina Warner’s latest book.
January Briefing

Awards and news
Steve Cole I Wish

Steve Cole chooses Catherine Storr’s Marianne Dreams.
Hal's Reading Diary January 2012

Roger Mills on books v computer games.
January Good Reads

Reviews from Widcombe C of E Junior School, Bath.
Classics in Short No. 91

Brian Alderson on Erich Kästner’s Emil and the Detectives.
Life Beyond the Bunker

Susanne Winnacker’s The Other Life is sending shivers up the spine of diehard dystopian fiction fans. Damian Kelleher discovers why.
A Squash and a Squeeze: Sharing Stories with Julia Donaldson

Julia Donaldson interviewed about the Seven Stories exhibition A Squash and a Squeeze
Sally Nicholls on All Fall Down

Sally Nicholls on her new novel All Fall Down

Editor's Choice

The Highway Rat
Julia Donaldson
(Alison Green Books)
5

A comic homage to Alfred Noyes’s 1906 narrative poem ‘The Highwayman’, Julia Donaldson’s The Highway Rat echoes to dramatically witty effect Noyes’s rhythmic cadences (‘And the highwayman came riding— /Riding—riding— /The...

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New Talent

Lolly Luck
Ellie Daines
(Andersen Press)
4

It is on Lollyanna’s 11th birthday that things start to go wrong. Lolly has always thought of herself, fittingly since her surname is Luck, as a lucky person but even she cannot make everything good when her dad loses his job. Financial problems...

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All Children's Book Reviews in BfK No. 192

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

Under 5s

  • Freight Train
    Donald Crews
    5

  • How Do You Feel?
    Anthony Browne
    5

  • The Highway Rat
    Julia Donaldson
    5

  • Lulu Reads to Zeki
    Anna McQuinn
    4

  • The Day the Gogglynipper Escaped
    James McKnight
    4

  • Has Anyone Seen My Chihuahua?

    Clare Wigfall
    4

  • Utterly Lovely One
    Mary Murphy
    4

  • Little Penguin Learns to Swim
    Eilidh Rose
    4

  • Chilly Milly Moo
    Fiona Ross
    3

  • Little Lion
    Lesley Beake
    3

  • Big Blue Engine
    Ken Wilson-Max
    3

  • The Three Sillies
    Tony Ross
    3

Ages 5-8

  • Sticky Ends
    Jeanne Willis
    5

  • The Pirates Next Door
    Jonny Duddle
    5

  • Pinkie Mouse, Where Are You?
    Alison Green
    4

  • The Barefoot Book of Mother and Daughter Tales
    Josephine Everts-Secker
    4

  • Fern and the Fiery Dragon
    Georgie Adams
    4

  • Number Rhymes Tens and Teens
    Opal Dunn
    4

  • Magic Beans. A Handful of Fairy Tales from the Storybag

    Various Authors
    3

  • Dirty Bertie: Snow!
    Alan MacDonald
    3

  • Bella Donna Witchling
    Ruth Symes
    3

  • The Pirate Suit
    Raewyn Caisley
    3

  • Me and My Family
    Jean Maye
    3

  • The Flute
    Rachna Gilmore
    3

Ages 8-10

  • The Sea Swallow
    Gareth Thompson
    5

  • Penny Dreadful is a Complete Catastrophe
    Joanna Nadin
    5

  • The Road to Stonehenge
    Jan Shirley
    4

  • Opal Moonbaby
    Maudie Smith
    4

  • Lolly Luck
    Ellie Daines
    4

  • The Wise Fool: Fables from the Islamic World
    Shahrukh Husain
    4

  • Nelson at Sea
    Simon Weston
    David Fitzgerald
    4

  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever
    Jeff Kinney
    4

  • Mr Gum in the Hound of Lamonic Bibber

    Andy Stanton
    4

  • Scrum!
    Tom Palmer
    3

  • Blood Hound
    Tanya Landman
    3

  • The Peppers and the International Magic Guys
    Sian Pattenden
    3

  • To Be a Cat
    Matt Haig
    3

  • How the Olympics Came to Be
    Helen East
    2

  • Furball and the Mokes
    A N Wilson
    2

  • The Sewer Demon
    Caroline Lawrence
    2

  • Spaceheadz Save the World

    Jon Scieszka
    2

Ages 10-14

  • Into the Unknown
    Stewart Ross
    5

  • Dark Warning
    Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick
    5

  • The Kalevala: tales of magic and adventure

    Kirsti Makinen
    5

  • 15 Days Without a Head
    Dave Cousins
    5

  • Oliver Twisted
    J D Sharpe
    4

  • Far Rockaway
    Charlie Fletcher
    4

  • Hollow Earth
    John Barrowman
    4

  • Knowing Me, Knowing You
    Helen Bailey
    3

  • Psychosilly
    Alan Murphy
    3

  • Out of the Depths
    Cathy MacPhail
    3

  • Street of Tall People
    Alan Gibbons
    3

  • Cinder
    Marissa Meyer
    3

  • Out of this World
    Clive Gifford
    3

Ages 14+

  • The Song of Achilles
    Madeline Miller
    5

  • Virtuosity
    Jessica Martinez
    4

  • A Witch in Winter
    Ruth Warburton
    4

  • In Darkness
    Nick Lake
    4

  • Twisted Heart
    Eden Maguire
    4

  • Beat the Band
    Don Calame
    4

  • Code Name Verity
    Elizabeth Wein
    4

  • Torn
    Cat Clarke
    3

  • The Catastrophic History of You and Me
    Jess Rothenberg
    2

  • India Dark
    Kirsty Murray
    1

BfK News

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.

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...
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