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

Books for Keeps 158 - 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. 158 - May 2006

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration is from Simon Bartram’s Up for the Cup! due to be published in September. Simon Bartram is interviewed by Martin Salisbury. Thanks to Templar Publishing for their help with this May cover.

BfK No. 158 Articles

Editorial - May 2006

News and comment from the Editor.
Marginalising Essentials

Robert Hull on interventionism in the teaching of English.
Fiction Publishing in the 21st Century

Cally Poplak assesses the potential of iCUE.

A Sailor’s Life for Me

Janet Fisher discusses historical novels about Trafalgar.
Authorgraph No.158: Simon Bartram

Simon Bartram interviewed by Martin Salisbury.
What Happens During Shared Reading?

Vincent Reid explores new research findings.
Hal's Reading Diary - May 2006

Roger Mills on competitive parents.
Good Reads: Stanchester Community School, Stoke Sub Hamdon, Somerset

Reviews from Stanchester Community School, Somerset.
BfK Briefing - May 2006

Awards * Events * Obituary * Letters to the Editor * Competition
Useful Organisations No.44: BRAW

BRAW (Books, Reading and Writing) is the network for the Scottish children’s book.
I Wish I’d Written…The Eclipse of the Century

Kate Thompson chooses Jan Mark's The Eclipse of the Century.
Classics in Short No.57: Nurse Matilda

Brian Alderson on Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda.

Editor's Choice

The Book of Everything
Guus Kuijer
(Young Picador)
5

Have Kuijer’s books been translated before? On the basis of this pithy, short, intensely poetic novel set in the Amsterdam of the 1950s, it would be good to have more of his work in translation.

The bares bones of the story are that 9-year...

read more

New Talent

The Wind Tamer
P R Morrison
(Bloomsbury Publishing PLC)
4

Archie Stringweed is just ten and a mollycoddled boy whose father, Jeffrey, is very nice but a man who is so anxious that despite collecting travel brochures, he has never dared to venture abroad. The Springweed family motto is ‘Semper fortitudo...

read more

All Children's Book Reviews in BfK No. 158

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

Under 5s

  • Ten Steps to Bedtime
    Britta Teckentrup
    5

  • Ouch! I Need a Plaster!
    Nick Sharratt
    5

  • Counting Cockatoos
    Stella Blackstone
    5

  • This Little Chick
    John Lawrence
    4

  • Spookyrumpus
    Tony Mitton
    4

  • Shark in the Park!
    Nick Sharratt
    4

  • Ketchup On Your Cornflakes?
    Nick Sharratt
    4

  • Eric the Red
    Caroline Glicksman
    4

  • This is the Bear
    Sarah Hayes
    Helen Craig
    3

  • Simeon's Gift
    Julie Andrews Edwards
    Emma Walton Hamilton
    3

  • My Mum Goes to Work
    Kes Gray
    3

  • I Love Shapes
    Dr Miriam Stoppard
    3

  • More and More Rabbits
    Nicholas Allan
    2

  • Cleo's Colour Book
    Caroline Mockford
    2

Ages 5-8

  • When a Zeeder Met a Xyder
    Malachy Doyle
    4

  • Oscar and the Frog: A Book about Growing; Oscar and the Moth: A Book about Light and Dark
    Geoff Waring
    4

  • My Map Book
    Sara Fanelli
    4

  • The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon
    Mini Grey
    4

  • My Hat and All That
    Tony Mitton
    3

  • Dinosaur Chase!
    Benedict Blathwayt
    3

Ages 8-10

  • Think of a Number
    Johnny Ball
    5

  • Katie Milk Solves Crimes and so on…
    Annie Caulfield
    5

  • The Penderwicks
    Jeanne Birdsall
    4

  • Clair de Lune
    Cassandra Golds
    4

  • A Bit of Nonsense
    Edward Lear
    4

  • The Wind Tamer
    P R Morrison
    4

  • Transform! How everyday things are made
    Jim Slavin
    3

  • The Story Shop: Stories for Literacy
    3

  • The Midwinters
    Julie Rainsbury
    3

  • A Dog For Life
    L S Matthews
    3

  • Ramose and the Tomb Robbers; Ramose: Prince in Exile
    Carole Wilkinson
    2

  • I Believe in Unicorns
    Michael Morpurgo
    2

  • Flyte (Septimus Heap, Book Two)
    Angie Sage
    2

Ages 10-14

  • Waiting for the Future: Poems by children on poverty and bad housing
    5

  • The Ultimate Teen Book Guide
    5

  • Peace Weavers
    Julia Jarman
    5

  • Once
    Morris Gleitzman
    5

  • The Lottery
    Beth Goobie
    5

  • A Darkling Plain
    Philip Reeve
    5

  • The Book of Everything
    Guus Kuijer
    5

  • Wolf Girl
    Theresa Tomlinson
    4

  • Watching
    Judy Allen
    4

  • Midnighters: The Secret Hour
    Scott Westerfeld
    4

  • Ingo
    Helen Dunmore
    4

  • Flying a Flag for Hitler
    Elsbeth Emmerich
    4

  • The Death Collector
    Justin Richards
    4

  • Charley Feather
    Kate Pennington
    4

  • Venus Spring: Stunt Girl
    Jonny Zucker
    3

  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
    Rick Riordan
    3

  • Payback
    Andy McNab
    Robert Rigby
    3

  • It Didn't Happen
    Sandra Glover
    3

  • Heretic
    Sarah Singleton
    3

  • Boy Band Blues
    Kelly McKain
    3

  • Death of A Princess
    Susan Geason
    2

Ages 14+

  • Tersias
    G P Taylor
    5

  • Silent to the Bone
    E L Konigsburg
    5

  • Let's Get Lost
    Sarra Manning
    5

  • Forged in the Fire
    Ann Turnbull
    5

  • Uglies
    Scott Westerfeld
    4

  • Skin
    A M Vrettos
    4

  • Herman
    Lars Saabye Christensen
    4

  • Thieves Like Us
    Steve Cole
    3

  • Love in Luxor
    Gill Harvey
    3

  • Firestarter
    Catherine Forde
    3

  • The Book of Whispers
    Julie O'Callaghan
    2

Books About Children's Books

  • Treasure Islands: Studies in Children's Literature
    4

BfK News

JANE PORTER AND MAISIE PARADISE SHEARRING 2020 LITTLE REBELS AWARD WINNERS

Jane Porter and Maisie Paradise Shearring have won the 2020 Little Rebels Award for their picture book The Boy who Loved Everyone. They will share the £2000 prize.

Little Rebels logo 2020

read more...
OU AND MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS LAUNCH BOOK CHAT SCHEME

The Open University (OU) is launching Book Chat: Reading with your Child, a resource which comprises three short films and support materials to help parents, families and carers read books conversationally and creatively to children. Working with Macmillan Children’s Books, the films use a selection of their picture books and a poetry collection to support families with reading to different ages of children.

read more...
TOM PALMER WINS THE CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD 2020

Tom Palmer

read more...
Zaro Weil wins 2020 CLiPPA (CLPE Children’s Poetry Award)

Poet Zaro Weil was today announced the winner of the annual poetry award, CLiPPA (Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award) for her collection of nature poems, Cherry Moon, published by ZaZaKids Books/ Troika Books and illustrated by Junli Song.

CLiPPA winner

read more...
CILIP CARNEGIE AND KATE GREENAWAY SHADOWERS’ CHOICE AWARDS TO DEAN ATTA AND KADIR NELSON

The winners of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Shadowers’ Choice Awards, voted for by children and young people, have been announced.

The Black Flamingo

read more...
LONGLISTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2021 UKLA BOOK AWARDS

UKLA award

read more...
EVA ELAND NAMED WINNER OF THE FIFTH KLAUS FLUGGE PRIZE

Eva Eland has won the 2020 Klaus Flugge Prize for the most exciting and promising newcomer to children’s picture book illustration. She won for her book When Sadness Comes to Call (Andersen Press), in which a young child opens the door to an unexpected visitor, Sadness, personified as a semi-transparent amorphous shape.

read more...
THE JHALAK PRIZE: A NEW PRIZE FOR BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS WRITTEN BY WRITERS OF COLOUR

Jhalak Prize logo

read more...
LIZ HYDER AND EDITOR SARAH ODEDINA WIN 2020 BRANFORD BOASE AWARD

Branford Boase Award logo

read more...
UK NOMINATIONS IBBY’S OUTSTANDING BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 2021

Every two years, IBBY invites nominations from national sections for its international list of Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities. The final list is selected from these by the IBBY Documentation Centre of Books for Young People with Disabilities, based in Toronto. Because of its international content, the list is unique in the children’s book world. It is a huge voluntary undertaking as every country is encouraged to submit up to twelve titles across the three categories.

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