PopMatters Books Feature | This Time You Pray For Real
Nikki TRanter, PopMatters Books Editor, takes a swipe at the current vogue for fantasy:
It's a plague of dragons.Not that there's anything really wrong with dragons, they're just everywhere, and they've swallowed the grit and the drama of literary teenage reality... ...
Recommended
The Observer | Review | The best theatrical Christmas entertainment 2005
There's more to Christmas shows than a load of old panto. We pick the best Yuletide family entertainment around the country...
A really useful listing of two dozen seasonal shows.
A profile of Chris Crutcher:
Children's book expert Anita Silvey says she found it "almost impossible" to limit the number of Crutcher's novels included in her forthcoming book, 500 Best Books for Young Adults. "He created most of the great sports novels of the '80s and '90s' - Stotan!, Ironman, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Running Loose, and Whale Talk," Silvey said. "They have all been popular with readers, but 'Whale Talk' seems to have developed a particularly devoted following.."
Scotsman.com News - Features - Shadowlands of Narnia
Feature about C. S. Lewis in The Scotsman
Recommended
BBC - Radio 4 Front Row - Home
Listen again to the edition of Front Row broadcast on Radio 4 earlier this evening... Includes interviews with Lauren Child and David Almond, as well as book recommendations from Julia Eccleshare and Damien Kelleher
Highly Recommended
Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Emma Brockes interview: Roger McGough
Feature interview with Roger McGough in yesterday's Guardian, in which he says:
[he]finds it demoralising when he goes on children's TV: "They say, 'Come on and read a poem,' and they're all very excited, but 'Keep it short, keep it short, it's for children.' OK. 'Keep it 30 seconds.' OK. Then you do your 30-second poem, and it's followed by someone coming on with a hedgehog for 20 minutes."
The Narnia Skirmishes - New York Times
Long piece in New York Times by Charles McGrath ending
Lewis once characterized the imagination as a faculty that "stirs and troubles" the reader with a "dim sense of something beyond his reach," and the Narnia chronicles, however stodgy their apparent message, surely succeed at doing just that. Like all the great children's books, they're not really concerned with explaining or defending this or that orthodoxy. They're interested in mostly the same thing Hollywood is: escape.
Highly recommended
You need a username login, which you can acquire for free.
EducationGuardian.co.uk | eG weekly | True crime: Sats are killing our stories
Highly Recommended
Children's authors, illustrators and poets Philip Pullman, Quentin Blake, Jamila Gavin, Michael Rosen, Jacqueline Wilson and Bernard Ashley have published a boradside attacking the govenrment's 'literacy hour' and regime of testing.
Rosen questions whether tests tell teachers or parents anything. "The one solid law of testing is that, as people get used to tests, they get better at doing them," he says. "When I am told my child is a level this or level that, I don't know what it means - and I've been involved in this lark for 30 years."
Waiting For A Jamie Oliver: Beyond Bogstandard Literacy is available from www.ncll.org.uk for £4.95
The Herts Advertiser - Author returns to old school
Short local press feature about Jonathan Stroud returning to his old school for a Book Week event.
Time to celebrate - the reviews are back in town. ACHUKA's brand new section is a review blog. When the site was redesigned just over a year ago, we lost the individual title review space, and it's been too long returning. I've been immensely heartened by the number of people who were keen to join the ACHUKA reviewing team. We've got a great mix of new and more experienced voices.
Read what Dina Rabinovitch thinks of Jan Pienkowski's The Fairy Tales; discover what recent title contains, according to Jake Hope, "one of the most beautiful, heartening and life-affirming speeches to be found in children's literature"; and see which titles have been the first to receive the ultimate ACHUKA accolade - a 5-chick rating.
Adam Guillain, author of th Bella Balistica series, has been appointed Writer in Residence at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre. Katy Sullivan, Education Manager at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, said of the
appointment: ‘Adam is a lively writer who we felt would inspire a love of stories in a wide range of
children through football, music and fun!’
