Amanda Craig reviewed The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson and How To Be A Pirate by Cressida Cowell in Saturday's Times...
Reviews: July 2004 Archives
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | State of the art
"Comics will be around long after most literary novels are forgotten, and they'll show us what was going on in the world a lot clearer," says Charlie Higson in The Guardian, reviewing McSweeney's 13 edited by Chris Ware:
Scotsman.com News - News Archive - A dogged determination to survive
I missed the link to my reviews of teenage fiction in last Saturday's Scotsman. But here it is now...
A page of reviews from straight.com
Star-Telegram | 07/13/2004 | Snog and Tell
Snog and TellBritish author Louise Rennison's teen titles, penned by an imaginary adolescent handful named Georgia, are pure geniosity...
An amusing US Louise Rennison review in Georgia-speak...
Reviews and Features from the Observer, July 11th:
Older fiction reviewed by Geraldine Beddell
Picture Books reviewed by Tim Adams
Non-Fiction reviewed by Kate Kellaway
Cornelia Funke interview by Kate Kellaway
Times Online - Newspaper Edition
Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week
The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson
Eva Ibbotson is one of our most enjoyable writers for the young. She tells stories with humour, warmth and perfect clarity in a way that children follow completely. They know where they are in all senses: they feel themselves to be in the places she conjures, and they know who they like and who they don't. NICOLETTE JONES
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Angels, ghosts and the green fairy
Philip Ardagh (Faber author) gives G. P. Taylor (Faber author) a rave review.
"Wormwood is an extraordinary achievement told by, yes, a master storyteller. In just 312 pages he has created a world that he can just as easily destroy. The book is, quite simply, marvellous."
"Children today may look as if they are addicted to computer games, but given half a chance they will sprawl on the sofa or beach towel absorbed in an imaginary world. An exceptionally strong crop of holiday books has been released this summer..."
Amanda Craig's holiday roundup in The Times includes a recommendation for Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now, a book that is garnering a bemusing litany of blissed-out rapture. It looks as if my review, when it appears in The Scotsman, will be a solitary thumbs-down for a book which I found to have a number of very serious flaws, not the least of which is a fatal inconsistency in the narrative voice, which purports to be telling the story in retrospect - 'And so here's what happened' - but then proceeds in the voice of unknowing naivety.
The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'The Trucker' and Other Children's Books
Children's book reviews from the New York Times - includes a review of Steve Augarde's The Various:
The first installment in a planned trilogy, ''The Various'' is long on atmospherics and rolls along at an unhurried pace that might test the patience of more jaded young readers. But there's also plenty of action -- including a gripping showdown between some little people and the hulking, remorseless barn cat Tojo the Assassin (''the scourge of all living things that dared cross his path'') and enough foreshadowing of mysterious secrets and future culture clashes to lock in an audience for the next two volumes.
EducationGuardian.co.uk | eG weekly | Classroom politics
Lindsey Fraser likes
The Beast by Ann Evans, a title in the Thriller series on Usborne's new fiction list:
"Good horror isn't about cheap thrills, as The Beast demonstrates with style and substance. Evans's writing is evocative and full of atmosphere, her plotting compelling and convincing." LINDSEY FRASER
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | A whiff of unsavoury Basil
This is ACHOCKABLOG's 1000th entry
Michael Rosen raves about Ian Ogilvy's Measle and the Wrathmonk
This is a book that smells superbly foul-ideal fare for seven- to 11-year-olds. Teachers and parents take note: this would make for the perfect, serialised read-aloud before going home, going to bed or going spare.
