Journals round up

A few recent articles:

ANNO

Marcus, L. S. (2009). Anno’s alphabet. Horn Book, 85(1), pp. 63-4.

BRIGGS, Raymond

Ellis, S. (2009). When the wind blows. Horn Book, 85(1), p. 41.

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Brinson, S. (2009). Behold the power of African-American female characters! Reading to encourage self-worth, inform/inspire and bring pleasure. Young Children, 64(1), pp. 26-31.

COOPER, Helen

Defries, M. (2009, January 22). Something to share. Nursery World, pp. 30-31.
Cooper offers tips for sharing stories, including her own picture books, with children in the early years.

GEORGE, Jean Craighead

Bader, B. (2009). Jean of the wolves. Horn Book, 85(1), pp. 43-49.

MAYHEW, James

Campbell, C. (2009). Katie and the British artists. Junior Education PLUS, 33(2), pp. 24-25.
Cross-curricular activities using ICT and picture books.

TAN, Shaun

Tan, S. (2009). Special Citation for Excellence in Graphic Storytelling. Horn Book, 85(1), pp. 29-33.
Acceptance speech for Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for The Arrival.

Books for Boys

One of the most popular areas of Jordanhill Library's children's literature web pages is Books for Boys. This has just been updated to include new titles published in the last year or so. All the books listed are in the library here, and still in print so you can buy them if you prefer. Catagories include Adventure and Suspense and Spooky Books - please take a look.

Children reading less for pleasure

Children and young people are reading less and while they have superior skills using the written word in new technology, they have less conventional writing experience. A ChildWise survey found that last year 75% of children read books in their own time, which is down from 80% in 2007—86% in 2006. Read more in the Bookseller or the Guardian.

Books for Keeps January 2009

The new edition has arrived. As usual, it's about 50% reviews, plus regular features such as Windows into Illustration (this month, Helen Oxenbury), Authorgraph (Mal Peet) and Classics in Short (Elizabeth Goudge's Little White Horse). Additional articles of interest are:

Alderson, B. (2009). Print on demand. Books for Keeps, 174, pp. 3-4.
What are the implications for children’s books of this new technology?

Morris, J. (2009). Picture books for everyone. Books for Keeps, 174, pp. 8-9.
Picture books are not just for infants – many are suitable for older children.

Sutcliffe, M. (2009). Forum: helping the teachers of reading. Books for Keeps, 174, p. 13.
Are trainee teachers being helped to find a way to get their pupils to enjoy books? How it is done at Westminster Institute of Education.

Aye Write!

The fourth Aye Write! Book Festival starts at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow on 6th March. The programme has just been issued and includes wide-ranging children's and school's programmes. We have good stocks of books by many of the featured authors, such as Julia Donaldson and Debi Gliori, and there is also a session by Anne Butler of Sticky Kids CDs, which we also stock. Finally, the Glasgow Film Theatre has a showing of The Tale of Despereaux, which was adapted from Kate Di Camillo's award-winning book. Full details of all events are on the official Aye Write! site.

Books, boys and Dr Evil

A series of storybooks for primary schools, using digital pictures and action-packed storylines, has been created to encourage boys to read. Project X, features four friends, three boys, Max, Ant and Tiger, and a girl, Cat, who are pitched against Dr Evil, a wicked scientist who wants to shrink the world. As boys are frequently attracted to non-fiction, each group of books in the Project X series is accompanied by a non-fiction book full of interesting facts and diagrams. For more information, see this Times Online article.

Notes from The Horn Book

I've blogged before about the Horn Book and its various spin-offs. Their latest email newsletter has just come out - Notes from the Hornbook. For this first month of the year, and with a big First in the offing (new American President), they've decided to focus on some other Firsts: novels, chapters, eggs, and groundbreakers. Of particular interest to British readers is an interview with Sally Nicholls, whose first book Ways to live forever, a novel for eight- to twelve-year-olds, won last years' Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize. The book takes on a tough subject — the death of a child — and narrates the story in the voice of eleven-year-old Sam, who is dying of leukemia. It is honest, heartbreaking, and richly funny, as Sam deals with his parents, his wishes, and the “Questions Nobody Answers.” (See my last post for details of another article about Sally Nicholls). The section on eggs (which came FIRST, the chicken or...) is an amusing idea, though we might not have all the books here. You can sign up to the newsletter here.

Teen Titles

The latest issue of Teen Titles is now in the library. As well as the usual selection of books for teenagers reviewed by teenagers, there are interviews with Deborah Ellis, Sally Nichols and Anne Forbes. Deborah Ellis's latest book is The prison runner, set in Bolivia, but she is perhaps best known for her Bread winner trilogy about life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Sally Nicholls has written her first book at just 24 - Ways to live forever, about a boy with leukemia whose tutor encourages him to make lists of what he wants to do and questions he wants answered. Anne Forbes is the author of the Dragonfire series, and her latest title, Underground city, is set against the background of spooky Mary King's Close in Edinburgh.

All these books can be borrowed from Jordanhill Library.

Journals round up

Here's another batch of recent journal articles:

BOYS AND READING

Boys and books. (2008). Reading Today, 26(3), p. 8.

CENSORSHIP

Haynes, J. & Murris, K. (2008). The “wrong message”: risk, censorship and the struggle for democracy in primary school. Journal of Philosophy for Children, 19(1), pp. 2-11.
Some teachers avoid dialogue about works of children’s literature that touch on taboo subjects.

FAIRY TALES

Bourke, R. (2008). First graders and fairy tales: one yeacher’s action research of critical literacy. Reading Teacher, 62(4), pp. 304-312.

GENDER ROLES

Cherland, M. (2008). Harry’s girls: Harry Potter and the discourse of gender. Journal of Adolescent Literacy, 52(4), pp. 273-282.

ZEPHANIAH, Benjamin

Barber, L. (2009, January 18). The interview: Benjamin Zephaniah. Observer Review, pp. 4-5.
Cuttings file no 1196.

Junior Education PLUS

Book related items in the January issue include an article on The 39 Clues - Reading in a digital age. This is a multimedia adventure series with books plus an online game and card collection. There is more information on the 39 clues website. In Ode to a haggis, Brenda Williams suggests using a lively Burns Night poem to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Scotland's famous poet, a new picture books and ICT series begins with Mini Grey's Traction Man meets Turbodog and the review pages look at books set in the past.

Costa Book Awards

The category winners for the Costa Book Awards were announced yesterday. The Children's Book Award was won by Michelle Magorian for Just Henry (Egmont, 2008), her first book in ten years:
"Set in post-war Britain, Just Henry is the story of a young boy who escapes the bleakness of life through his passion for cinema. His stepfather, whom he despises, will never compare with his dead father, a war hero. Appalled to find that his partners on a school photography trip include Jeffries, whose father went AWOL and Pip, who is illegitimate, he's about to learn that tolerance and friendship are more important than social stigmas. Processing a film that he took on the trip, Henry makes an alarming discovery. Like a bomb waiting to explode, his world is about to unravel."
This and other titles by Michelle Magorian, including her most famous Goodnight Mister Tom, can be found in Jordanhill Library.