Guardian Review of Bloodsong by Melvin Burgess
What binds Burgess's marvellously realised dystopian vision into material and moral coherence is the underlying narrative, with its ancient and familiar tropes of trial by ordeal, visits to the underworld, a magic sword, physical doubleness and the quest for spiritual wholeness... ...
The Man Who Invented Chrsitmas by Andrew Billen
Billen’s warmth of affection and his deep admiration for his subject are infectious and make this a treat to slip into a bookish child’s Christmas stocking. AMANDA CRAIG
Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
A Brush With The Past 1900-1950: The Years That Changed Our Lives by Shirley Hughes
Shirley Hughes has created a new kind of nonfiction with this combination of sketchbook and history book. NICOLETTE JONES
Books - reviews and literary news from The Times and The Sunday Times
In last Saturday's Times, Amanda Craig reviewed Clay by David Almond:
The climax of this strange, miraculous, beautiful book will make it a classroom classic. AMANDA CRAIG
Independent Online Edition > Reviews : app5
Nautical tales of knights and northern lights
Books for 8-12-year-olds
reviewed by Christina Hardyment in The Indpendent...
titles include Nikolai Of The North by Lucy Daniel Raby - "a dashing, not to say dancing and prancing, debut.. ...Honest writing, rich imaginings and thrilling twists ensure that this will become a Christmas classic."
Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
This self-sufficient follow-up to Adèle Geras’s powerful novel Troy imagines events on Ithaka during the years in which Penelope awaits the return of her warrior husband Odysseus... [and]amounts to a riff on the subject of desire, rediscovering in Homer’s ancient story the full, enduring force of its passion and violence. Young adults will be thrilled. NICOLETTE JONES
Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
High In The Clouds by Paul McCartney et. al.
Nicolette Jones is not all that impressed with this week's selection:
This book had a initial print run of 50,000 copies. It was put together by committee — Paul McCartney, children’s author Philip Ardagh, and animator Geoff Dunbar — and it shows: it is lumbering, awkward and not very beautiful. The pictures have the dull slickness of computerised animation, Ardagh’s wit is laboured, and there are tiresome digressions...
Books - reviews and literary news from The Times and The Sunday Times
Amanda Craig approves of the fast-paced adventuring in
Skybreaker is the sequel to Airborn, the first of an Indiana Jones-style adventure trilogy set in a world geographically like this one but dominated by zeppelins or airships. The irrepressible cabin boy Matt Cruse won enough treasure at the end of Airborn to afford a place as a trainee at the Airship Academy, but his troubles are by no means over.
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Review: Seeker by William Nicholson
Marcus Sedgwick enjoys Seeker, the start of a new trilogy from William Nicholson:
All trilogies pose a challenge for the author - how to close the story's arc in one volume while leaving enough open to drive the narrative into the next. Seeker achieves an admirable balance, and while the exploits in Anacrea and Radiance close satisfyingly, Seeker's true adventure is still to come.
CBBC Newsround | Reviews | Book Review: Higher Ground
CBBC Book Review
Higher Ground [with a foreword by Michael Morpurgo] is a collection of sixteen short stories and each is written by a top children's author. All of the stories are based on the experience of a real child who survived the Boxing Day Tsunami.
Books - reviews and literary news from The Times and The Sunday Times
Amanda Craig reviews Love Lessons, the new novel by Jacqueline Wilson:
"the most richly enjoyable Wilson novel for years"
Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
The Worst Wich Saves The Day by Jill Murphy
Like its predecessors, Murphy’s new book is as much about school relationships as it is about magic: about fear of the strict teacher, and of not being good enough; about the know-all who sucks up to the teachers; about finding friends and learning to fit in. Broomsticks, spells and familiars are the props in the drama of school life... ...A great joy of the series is Murphy’s black- and-white illustrations, entirely clear and in tune with the text. NICOLETTE JONES
