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The 20th Century

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BfK No. 103 - March 1997

Cover Story
The cover of this issue is a design incorporating illustrations from four books illustrated by the subject of our Authorgraph, Ian Beck. The top left illustration is from Five Little Ducks (Orchard), the top right from Poppy and Pip's Picnic (to be published Autumn '97 by HarperCollins), the bottom left from The Owl and the Pussy-cat (Transworld) and the bottom right from Home Before Dark (to be published September '97 by Scholastic). Ian Beck's Picture Book (Hippo) is reviewed in this issue.
Beck talks to BfK's interviewer, Julia Eccleshare, also in this issue. His distinctive decorative style with its sensitive pen line and cross hatching has a nostalgic but sometimes also a surreal quality - he describes it as 'a look that is floating, strong and wistful all at the same time'.

Thanks to Orchard, HarperCollins, Transworld and Scholastic for their help in producing this composite cover.

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The 20th Century

Terry Deary
 Philip Reeve
(Hippo)
176pp, NON FICTION, 978-0590542661, RRP £7.99, Paperback
8-10 Junior/Middle
Horrible Histories
Buy "The Twentieth Century (Horrible Histories Special)" on Amazon

Deary's thesis is simple - if not original: history is not what happened - it is what you remember about what happened. He expresses this thesis by trawling the annals of white western human-kind and picking out bits which, by delivering them in ribtickling fashion, he can make memorable. Thus the sort of marginal commentary we all provided for ourselves when plugging through school history texts becomes a text in its own right and the result is a bran-tub of facts and ideas, some crucial, some trivial, delivered in giggle-a-minute rapid fire. Or should that be groan-a-minute - some of the jokes are dreadful. Anyway what this all means is that the facts and ideas selected lose much of their Relative Importance which, if you think of History as being that which Explains the Past and Excuses the Future, is relatively important. That this is no 'real' history book is evident - no references, bibliography or index; but it has the capacity to be great entertainment and its potential as a warm up to the class act is considerable.

Reviewer: 
Ted Percy
3
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