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

Books for Keeps 192 - 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. 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...

read more

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...

read more

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

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