Reviews: July 2006 Archives

Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online

Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week

The White Giraffe by Lauren St John

Although its plot developments are sometimes ploddingly explained, and its research sometimes conspicuous, this tale nevertheless introduces a glorious creature and enjoyable characters: Martine’s grandmother, her Zulu gamekeeper and a fortune-telling African wise woman. And it fulfils wishes common to many children: to love and be loved by animals, to outwit bullies, and to be daring, independent and triumphant. NICOLETTE JONES

Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Riding towards the truth

Adele Geras enjoys the mix of cricket and political intrigue in Kate Thompson's The Fourth Horseman:

Laurie's mother, Mrs McAllister, is a sports physiotherapist working with the England cricket team. She's away most of the time, in New Zealand, or Shasakstan (the fictitious state Thompson has invented which has more than a passing resemblance to Pakistan). But it is from her that the novel gets its wonderfully entertaining cricketing theme.

Horror is in the eye of the beholder - Books - Times Online

Amanda Craig identifies the oral tradition of Celtic storytelling in her review of new books by Joseph Delaney and Darren Shan

Delaney and Shan share an interest in salvation and redemption, and you can hear the oral tradition of Celtic storytellers in their hypnotic prose ...

Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online

Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week

You're A Bad Man, Mr Gum! by Andy Stanton ill David Tazzyman

Andy Stanton accumulates silliness and jokes in an irresistible, laughter-inducing romp... NICOLETTE JONES

The way she writes now - Books - Times Online

Amanda Craig reviewed Meg Rosoff's new novel in yesterday's Times:

Just in Case is a cooler, more cerebral novel than How I Live Now, deliberately shorn of the passionate romantic ardour that made Daisy’s tale so attractive, and written in the third person not the first. It is unlikely to gain the huge popular appeal of Rosoff’s debut. Yet in describing the existential anguish of adolescence, and its unique mixture of absurdity and anger, it is a modern The Catcher in the Rye.

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Blistering barnacles! He's a literary icon

Tom McCarthy, in unearthing the secrets of Herge's oeuvre, makes some bold claims for Tintin's creator, finds Killian Fox

Review of Tintin And The Secret Of Literature by Tom McCarthy in The Observer:

The pleasure of reading it derives precisely from its author's obsessive approach, his breathtaking grasp of the oeuvre and the sheer exuberance with which he tackles his subject, showing us just how rich with detail and complexity Herge painted his world. McCarthy's saving grace, though he takes Tintin very seriously indeed, is the humour with which he peppers his analysis and the obvious joy he takes from his area of study, a joy that transcends the critical and stems from the delighted first readings of a child.

Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online

Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week

With a cast of loyal servants, scheming politicians, cheeky boys, feisty girls, kindly peasants, rough sailors and fearsome villains, this is an energetic pageturner in a fine storytelling tradition with enough action and emotion to put wind in its sails and a weepy ending NICOLETTE JONES

Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Beauty and the blubber bunny

What Burgess has done here is use journalistic clich?and devices to make the story seem more "real" - less of a smooth read and more of a reporting of events (intercut with sections written by the main characters themselves). The success (or otherwise) of the novel therefore depends on just how gripped you are by the characters and situations.

Philip Ardagh, reviewing Sara's Face in The Guardian, was gripped:

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | The joy of reading

Somehow or other I missed this stirring piece by Dina Rabinovitch from Saturday's Guardian. Essentially a summer roundup of across-the-age-range recommendations, it leads off with a rousing attack on the anti-readers. Passionate journalism at its very best. Do not miss it!

It is one of the many mini-miracles of the great flourishing of children's writing that children's literature should be so strong in a country where the anti-readers hold sway. They are secreted in every crevice of this island. I have interviewed them, so I know. They are in government, in schools, in homes; some of them work in the media. But children's stories flow, none the less, in a huge, rushing tide from the prolific pens of the children's authors, many of whom write two or three really good stories a year. And the children find the books.

Surfing into summer - Sunday Times - Times Online

Nicolette Jones has some sizzling suggestions for holiday reading - Sunday Times

There was also a roundup in Saturday's Telegraph, plus a feature on Louise Rennison in the magazine - but no hyperlinks to these...

Independent Online Edition > Reviews

Brandon Robshaw's fiction reviews in The Independent children's books special include this praise for Set In Stone, the new book by Linda Newbery:

The story succeeds so brilliantly not through sensationalism but the virtuosity of the style... ...This is a novel for young adults, but is subtle and substantial enough to be read with great pleasure and profit by older adults too.

Independent Online Edition > Reviews

The Independent: Children's Book Special: Picture perfect

Independent Online Edition > Reviews

Children's books reviewed by Felix Taylor (age 13) - The Independent

Children's book of the week - Sunday Times - Times Online

Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week

Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson

the novel’s sentence-long paragraphs do not make it simple, and an inconsistent pace diffuses its emotional power. Ambitious in its range of times and places, the book can be confusing in its allusions, with, for instance, unexplained references to Schr?ger’s cat, Atlantis and Robert Hooke. It is far from a wreck, but it is a bit of a tangle. NICOLETE JONES

In the interests of balance, and since Winterson's publisher objected when I posted an extract from another criical review, I shall point out, for those who don't click the link to the full rview, that Jones also says - besides calling the book 'ramshackle and rambling' - "Some details are beautifully made."

Witty pigs and wicked Brazilians - Books - Times Online

Amanda Craig's summer roundup of children's books

Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Review: The Road of Bones by Anne Fine

"a modern novel with a mythical sensibility that grapples with those troubling questions about the atrocities human beings can perpetrate in the name of making the world a better place..." Diane Samuel's reviewing Anne Fine's The Road Of Bones in The Guardian

a modern novel with a mythical sensibility that grapples with those troubling questions about the atrocities human beings can perpetrate in the name of making the world a better place