children's & YA recommendations on the go
Jake Hope has been doing some work with students at Brownedge St Mary’s in Bamber Bridge. Their Reading and Writing (RAW) group put together some interview questions for Carnegie medal winning author Frank Cottrell Boyce. Now live on the children’s book site of ‘The Guardian’.
Fabukous set of questions (and of course answers).
Literature did wonders for my early vocabulary By the age of five, I was writing couplets that featured the word “alas”. I suppose I had a way of speaking that was not always suitable for my age. It made me stand out at school – and not in a good way.
School can be hell I was bullied from the age of seven, and I had to share a classroom with the main bully, my nemesis, for the next nine years. I was made fun of, stabbed with pencils in the back. It was all pretty unpleasant, and made me very anxious, very scared. I didn’t talk about it to anyone, I didn’t ask for help; I just thought that this was what life was. I coped by reading; books were a window to another world.
There have been some impressive debut novels this year. Judges for the next Branford Boase Award should have no trouble arriving at a strong shortlist. One book likely to be in contention is this highly atmospheric story about the relationship between a boy and a semi-vagrant war veteran called Webster.
This was Julia Eccleshare’s pre-release summary on LoveReading4Kids:
A poignant debut novel, The Dark Inside is the touching story of a thirteen year old coming to terms with the death of his mother as well as an exciting, mysterious and dramatic adventure. When James finds a man covered in terrible wounds living in the ruined house that he runs to in order to escape his step father, he begins an complicated journey in which the real readily becomes magical and the supernatural is never far away. The lessons James learns about change are thought provoking.
I particularly liked the way the book posed philosophical questions along the way. The author read Theology at Cambridge.
