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edited by Julia Eccleshare |
Hodder |
9781844036714 |
October 2009 |
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This lovely whopper of a reference book weighs in at just under 1000 pages. The first thing to be said about it is that has been splendidly designed and presented, as well as printed to a high quality. The typeface is sharp and easy on the eye. The page layouts are straightforward and uniform throughout the book. For the most part the illustrations used are the book jackets from a title’s first edition. Indeed, much pleasure can be derived from 1001 Children’s Books without reading a single entry; just admiring the book jacket designs and (for an older consumer such as I am) taking a trip down memory lane is delight enough. |
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This is a terrific reference work and it was interesting to see books from a wide range of different countries. Some of the age banding seems eccentric to me: why have ‘Wizard of Earthsea’ and the (very violent) ‘Sterkarm Handshake’ in the 8+ category and ‘The Dark is Rising’ and ‘Mister Monday’ in 12+, for example. I was also unreasonably irritated by the review of ‘ Guess How Much I Love You’- the reviewer describes the big hare as ‘Mother’ which tells me he hasn’t actually read the book! Some of the Americanisms grate a bit, too. But overall a great selection with lots of new things to try.