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Book Week Scotland 2015

Nora and Lisa Patron (4) celebrate the launch of Book Week Scotland 2015
Pictures copyright: Rob McDougall

It's here again! The 2015 Book Week Scotland programme was unveiled yesterday. Thanks to our friends at Scottish Book Trust, people across the country will be invited to celebrate the transformative power of books and reading from 23-29 November. Check out the programme for schools and families for some great children's events.


Yes, I want to shout about it too!

Theresa Breslin's Divided City: Mixing the Colours

It's over ten years since Theresa Breslin's Divided City came out, and I can't believe I haven't read it before now. I borrowed it recently from the Mixing the Colours collection (part of a project in which women speak about intra-Christian sectarianism) at Glasgow Women's Library. I meant to review it for their website, but stupidly didn't check if it had been done already. It had, so I'm posting my review here instead.

Theresa Breslin’s Divided City explodes onto the page. A boy is walking down a street in a part of Glasgow he knows isn’t safe. Footsteps sound behind him – and then there's a stabbing. The boy, Graham, a Rangers supporting football fanatic, stops to help the young man who has been injured - Kyoul, an asylum seeker - and the story takes off from here.

Next we meet Joe. He and Graham have just been at the same football practice and they played really well together. The coach is hoping to set up a team drawn from all Glasgow schools, and these two seem a certainty. But Joe is a Celtic supporter – can he and Graham be friends? It’s not just a matter of football teams, it’s religion too – Joe is from a Catholic family; Graham is a Protestant whose Grandfather is hoping to persuade him to take part in the next Orange Walk.

Breslin draws the relationship between the two boys well, with its contrast of conflict and co-operation. Neither boy can be honest with his family about his new friend, and yet it is Joe whom Graham trusts to help him get a message to Kyoul’s girlfriend. After the exciting beginning I found this part of the plot unconvincing, but I can see that Kyoul was there to show that the boys are not intolerant or fearful of “the other” – apart from the blind spot that growing up with sectarianism has given them. I like that this is not completely resolved by the end of the book – it wouldn’t be in real life – but that we are left with a sense of hope that initiatives such as the all-Glasgow football team will start to build bridges.

Theresa, a former librarian, is a great supporter of libraries and is currently Vice-President of CILIPS (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals). For more about her, there are many interviews and articles out there: the most recent one I've read is from the always entertaining Bookwitch. For more on Divided City, see its section on Theresa's webpage.

Other books for young people on the Mixing the Colours list include Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses series, Joan Lingard's Kevin and Sadie books, the Breadwinner trilogy by Deborah Ellis and Tribes by Cathy MacPhail.

Scottish Children's Book Awards: 2016 shortlist

Photo credit: Rob McDougall.

The shortlist for next year's Scottish Children's Book Awards, managed by Scottish Book Trust in partnership with Creative Scotland, has been announced today. Above, you can see pupils from Royal Mile Nursery, Flora Stevenson Primary and Holyrood High demonstrating their support for the nominees on Edinburgh's Calton Hill.

Over the next five months, children throughout Scotland will be reading the three shortlisted books in their age category and voting for their favourite.

Bookbug Readers (3-7 years)

(Every child in Primary 1 will receive a free copy of each Bookbug title during Book Week Scotland in November.)

• Never Tickle a Tiger by Pamela Butchart and Marc Boutavant (Bloomsbury)
• Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit Book Burglar by Emily MacKenzie (Bloomsbury)
• Mouse’s First Night at Moonlight School by Simon Puttock and Ali Pye (Nosy Crow)

Younger Readers (8-11 years)

• The Nowhere Emporium by Ross Mackenzie (Floris)
• The Mysteries of Ravenstorm Island: The Lost Children by Gillian Philip (Orchard)
• The Fastest Boy in the World by Elizabeth Laird (Macmillan)

Older Readers (12-16 years)

• Black Dove White Raven by Elizabeth Wein (Egmont)
• The Piper by Danny Weston (the pseudonym of Philip Caveney) (Andersen)
• Trouble on Cable Street by Joan Lingard (Catnip)

As well as voting, children can also enter book review and book trailer competitions. To find out how to involve your class or book group, keep an eye on the SBT website. Finally, CALL Scotland has again worked with Scottish Book Trust and the publishers to create accessible digital versions of the nine shortlisted books for children and young people with physical, visual and reading or dyslexic difficulties, who can’t read the paper books. These are available free of charge from CALL Scotland.

The A to Z Challenge

This month I'm following the A to Z Challenge with two of my other blogs, both of which are WordPress. When I'm commenting on Blogger posts I sometimes forget to put in a link to my Challenge blogs, and the automatic link leads to this one. So if you've landed here unexpectedly, you might be looking for the A to Z of Gallus Glasgow on Anabel's Travel Blog or the A to Z of What's good about libraries? on Adventures of a Retired Librarian. I hope to meet you there!

A win for Alex McCall! Scottish Children's Book Awards 2015

The winners of the Scottish Children's Book Awards 2015, run by Scottish Book Trust and funded by Creative Scotland, were announced today. Two of the authors were on their third win - Ross Collins (3-7) and Cathy MacPhail (12-16) - but Alex McCall is a first-timer, and one of Scotland's youngest published authors. He won the 8-11 category with Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens.



Alex McCall. Photo credit: Rob McDougall

I've written about Alex before: first when the shortlists for the award were announced when I described how I'd met him (briefly), and second when I chose to send Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens to Japan for the International Book Giving Day Swap that I took part in. So I feel a sort of connection with him, and I'm very glad he won. So is Alex! He said:

“There’s something of a feeling of coming full circle here. This is my first book and it got published through the Kelpies Prize. But the only reason that I found out about the Kelpies Prize is through a previous winning author coming to my school, through the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature Fund. So while I’m delighted to win I also feel very lucky that Scottish Book Trust exists in the first place. Being able to go into school and meet the children that you are writing for is fantastic enough as it is. Knowing that those kids have voted for you makes it even better. In general participating in the Awards has been a really good experience. It is just hard to believe that I’ve been lucky enough to actually win.”

Congratulations to Alex and, of course, massive thanks and congratulations to Scottish Book Trust for these fabulous awards. Here's the beautiful trophy Alex won.

This is the beautiful @justsomeartkid-designed trophy our 2015 Scottish Children's Book Award winners will win... pic.twitter.com/rhRdeTFvJ4
— Scottish Book Trust (@scottishbktrust) March 4, 2015

The book swap: books duly swapped!

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about getting the details of my partner in Zoe's International Book Giving Day Book Swap. Since then I have picked my book, sent it off and heard that it has arrived in Japan! That's it on the left - I chose it because I wanted to get something Scottish, it's a prizewinning book and I've even met the author, Alex McCall (here's where I explain about that.)

What is Attack of the giant robot chickens about? This is what it says on the back of the book:

"Why did the chicken cross the road? To take over the world! Giant robot chickens are terrorising the city of Aberdeen. Their aim: to peck out all signs of human resistance. The streets are empty, the adults have vanished and those left behind must hide from the powerful poultry or get scrambled! Jesse and his friends hatch a plot to stop the fowl fiends and take back their city - but when a gang of kids takes on an army of angry robot chickens, things don't eggs-actly go to plan."

I'm guessing Alex likes puns a lot! I hope the humour is something that will appeal to the 10-year old bi-lingual boy in Japan who now owns the book.

And what have I received in return? Well, Jo (the recipient's Mum) and I have corresponded by email a few times, and I received a lovely letter and card in the post (see left). Then today, my book arrived from the Book Depository. It's My neighbour Totoro, a novelisation by Tsugiko Kubo of one of Hayoa Miyazaki's films. I confess that I have only seen one of those (Kiki's delivery service) so I'm not very familiar with his work. Time to find out! This is an on-going story...

More information:

International Book Giving Day 2015

Zoe's Book Swap

Jo's blog

National Libraries Day in Scotland

It was National Libraries Day on Saturday, with lots of activities going on for children and adults. Here are some examples.

I think Dundee Library looks like a great place to take kids. They have a squid!

Let me introduce our children's library squid. We're looking for a name. Any ideas #namethatsquid #NLDScot #NLD15 pic.twitter.com/wJfIJZZOMC
— Dundee Libraries (@dundeelibraries) February 7, 2015

And they were experimenting with Book Faces - this is a fabulous idea to try with the children in your school / library / home. My favourite:

#bookface #NLD15 #NationalLibrariesDay #NLDscot pic.twitter.com/Hzx1BbSnME
— Dundee Libraries (@dundeelibraries) February 7, 2015

Dunbar Library was having a great event with author Debi Gliori.

Sewing some wee creatures to help me with storytime in Dunbar Library on @NatLibrariesDay #NLD15 #AlfieBooks pic.twitter.com/meWnCeP0lj
— Debi Gliori (@DebiGliori) February 2, 2015

And Penicuik had Nick Sharratt.

On Saturday children's author and illustrator Nick Sharratt will be visiting Penicuik Library 2-3pm #NLD15 pic.twitter.com/qfXCpKVKTF
— Swoop (@swooplocal) February 2, 2015

Moray Library storytimes are popular.

Storytimes are still popular in libraries - check at your local library to discover times. #NLD15 #nldscot pic.twitter.com/I0iO40opi3
— @librariesmoray (@librariesmoray) February 4, 2015

Glasgow Libraries had a party with a clown at Langside to celebrate its 100th birthday.

Cheeko the clown entertaining children and adults at Langside Library's centenary birthday party! pic.twitter.com/5qPIKpgE4U
— Glasgow Libraries (@GlasgowLib) February 7, 2015

Strathclyde showed off its Storysacks. Student teachers borrow these to take into the classroom.

@Storysacks #NLD15 #NLDscot #UniStrathLibIT pic.twitter.com/ZK076j49kX
— Gordana Nesterovic (@SipaNest) February 7, 2015

It all looks great, doesn't it? But - despite the wonderful things going on in libraries, many of them are under threat. Here are some blog posts from children's authors and publishers reminding you why they are worth saving:

An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (by Dawn Finch) Happy National Libraries Day 2015!

Barrington Stoke National Libraries Day: Anthony McGowan and his teen narrator say it better than we ever could.

Jackie Morris Fighting talk.

Nicola Morgan Celebrating National Libraries Day.

And to take it back to a happy note before finishing, Playing by the book (Zoe Toft) describes a great book group she was running for children on Saturday, ACHUKAblog displays some lovely children's library cards designed by Jackie Morris and (not an NLD blog post but too good to miss) MinervaReads celebrates picture books on the theme of libraries.

Love libraries? Use 'em or lose 'em!

National Libraries Day 2015 - a YLG competition

National Libraries Day is coming up on Saturday, 7th February, and events are taking place throughout this week. Here's a message from the Youth Libraries Group about a great competition they are running:

"As this day becomes increasingly important as an advocacy tool for libraries, as well as an opportunity to celebrate all that we do, YLG have joined with the publishers to launch an easy to run competition for all libraries, nationally.

Using Twitter, we are asking all libraries to encourage their customers to take a photo of themselves in their local library on NLD, or during the week running up to NLD. We’d like them to send their photo (they can hold up a book in front of their face if they are shy!) to @Youthlibraries with #NLD15, Age **. 

Our ever generous publisher friends have donated lovely signed copies of some marvellous books, so having the age is very important for us to be able to send the randomly selected Tweeters an appropriate prize. A photo of the books (and a signed Chris Riddell!!!!!!) will be Tweeted by @Youthlibraries to launch the promotion, so be sure to follow us!"

 For those tweeting in Scotland about NLD, don't forget to add #nldscot too.

An exciting book day

Two exciting book related happenings today! The postman called with an enormous parcel - 10 lovely books from Random House Children's Publishers which I won on Twitter. I haven't sorted through them yet to decide which ones to read and review and which libraries to donate them to afterwards - I'm sure there are a few more blog posts in there so I'll keep you posted.

The second thing was an email from Zoe Toft telling me the name of my partner in her International Book Giving Day swap, which I wrote about before Christmas. My partner is in Japan and would like a book suitable for her 10-year old son who is bilingual. She in turn will send me a book (in English) in the 8-13 age range. My plan is to find something Scottish if I can - watch this space!

Happy 100th Birthday Wallasey Children’s Library!

I saw this on Twitter the other day:

@7Stories could you please send a birthday card to a library celebrating its centenary this year? pic.twitter.com/ia2vpdIpMh
— Suzanne Fenna (@suzylou1978) January 19, 2015

You probably can't read the text, but it says:

Wallasey Central Children’s Library is celebrating Its 100th Birthday! One of the first separate public libraries for children in the country, the library was opened during WW1, survived being bombed in WW2, has been much loved by generations of Wallasey children and reaches its centenary in 2015. Readers and Staff at Wallasey Library would like to invite anyone who loves libraries to help us celebrate by… Sending us a birthday card! Please send a 100th Birthday card – homemade cards welcome of course – as early in the year as possible to Wallasey Central Children’s Library, Earlston Road, Wallasey, CH45 5DX. Please include a mention of a children’s book you have particularly enjoyed. Wallasey children and their parents and carers are sharing and enjoying books every day.  They would love to hear from you. Thank You! From All at Wallasey Central Children’s Library.

Well, I couldn’t turn down a request like that – and, very appropriately, I even found a 100th birthday card illustrated by one of my favourite children’s illustrators, Quentin Blake.

 

As asked, I added a note about my favourite children’s book, Anne of Green Gables - which is even older than the library itself as it was first published in 1908. Then I sent my card off – why don’t you do the same? I’m sure the library would be delighted to hear from you.

 



Farewell 2014

I've mentioned before that I'm good at winning books through social media or other online draws. Usually, I review the book here then pass it on to a suitable library or charity. This year, I've been quite remiss about that and all the titles below have gone, unread, to their new homes. However, I'd still like to thank the publishers who supplied them, and I'll try to do better next year.

Picture book

Maudie Smith and Antonia Woodward Milly and the mermaids. (Orion)
Milly loves mermaids. She's sure if she just wishes hard enough she'll meet one on her visit to the seaside. Will her dream come true?

Novels

Karen McCombie The girl who wasn't there. (Scholastic)
13 year old Maisie doesn't believe in ghosts - but when she starts at a new school she hears rumours of a long-gone girl who wanders the halls. A ghostly friendship mystery.

Helen Moss The phoenix code. (Orion)
Two present day teenagers get caught up in an Ancient Egyptian murder mystery.

Na'ima B. Robert She wore red trainers. (Kube)
When Ali first meets Amirah, he notices everything about her - her hijab, her long eyelashes and her red trainers. They can't stop thinking about each other, but can they ever have a halal "happily ever after"?

Non-fiction

Jacqueline Wilson Daydreams and diaries. (Corgi Yearling)
The popular novelist tells the story of her own childhood and youth.

So Farewell 2014, I have cleared the decks. All the best to everyone for 2015.

A book swap for International Book Giving Day

International Book Giving Day happens every year on 14th February with the aim of getting books into the hands of as many children as possible. The 2015 poster (above) by award winning illustrator Chris Haughton has just been released.

It might seem early to be thinking about February when we haven't even reached Christmas yet, but that's what I'm doing because Zoe Toft of the wonderful blog Playing by the book has just announced a fabulous book swap scheme. #GiveABook, #SwapABook is all about sharing, sending and receiving children’s books: you can spread the word about a children’s book you love, and discover another equally amazing book through a gift from someone else. I plan to sign up and send a Scottish book to whoever I am paired with  - which one, I haven't yet decided. The book I get in return I will read, review and pass on to a library or charity.

To join in yourself, click on the link above or the logo at the top of the sidebar. I'll keep you posted on my own progress!

Jackie Morris: Something about a bear

Jackie Morris: Something about a bear. (Frances Lincoln)

When I worked in a library, we had loads of Jackie Morris's gorgeously illustrated children's books, so I was really pleased to win this one in a Youth Libraries Group draw. "Let me tell you something about a bear" it begins, before matching beautiful watercolours with poetically written text about eight different types of wild bear. But "of all the bears in the wide wild world, the very best bear of all is..." I'll leave you to guess! It finishes up with a double spread of facts, in much smaller text, about each species, and a list of conservation websites. The book could thus appeal to a range of age-groups: from those who just love the pictures, through those who can read the simpler text, to those who are ready to learn more about bears, maybe for a school project.

Jackie obviously loves bears, and so do I. After I won the book, we had a short chat on Twitter about it (find her @JackieMorrisArt). Here's a bear that I saw on holiday this year. It's zoomed a bit, but yes, it was that close, grazing behind our accommodation in Shenandoah National Park.


Jackie also loves cats and I can't remember if I discovered her cat blog first, before her books (We three, ginger cats tales). She has a different blog now (Jackie Morris Artist), and the ginger cats are no longer with her, but it's still worth taking a look, or see the fabulous gallery in the Guardian, Cat walk.

Thanks to YLG and Frances Lincoln Children's Books for sending me this book - there was no obligation from either to write about it. Now I've enjoyed it, I'll be donating it to Glasgow Women's Library, where I'm sure the resident Brownie Pack will love learning about bears.

Book Week Scotland 2014

Well-loved literary characters don their boxing gloves and get ready for the fight of their lives, as Scottish Book Trust launches the full Book Week Scotland 2014 programme (24-30 November). It includes a national vote for the favourite character from a Scottish book. Place your vote (I've already done mine) and find out about all the other exciting events and activities on the SBT website.

The launch looks like a lot of fun! All photographs by Rob McDougall.

 

Scottish Children's Book Awards 2015 - shortlist announced

The nominees. Photo credit: Rob McDougall

The shortlist for the Scottish Children's Book Awards 2015 was announced today.  These are Scotland’s largest book awards, with a total prize fund of £12,000, and celebrate the most popular children’s and young adult books by Scottish authors or illustrators. For a full list of nominees in all three categories (3-7, 8-11 and 12-16) see the Scottish Book Trust website - they are running the awards, with support from Creative Scotland, for the eighth time.

The 8-11 list includes a debut book from one of the youngest published authors in Scotland (Alex McCall), and a children’s book from one of the best known authors in the world (Alexander McCall Smith) - and they have very similar names which means voters (Scotland's children) will have to be very careful with their choice!

Alex McCall. Photo credit: Rob McDougall

Claim to fame - I have actually met Alex McCall, even if only for five minutes. He was with his Mum as she arrived at an event which I'd helped Glasgow Women's Library to organise, and they recognised my name because I'd voted in a Twitter poll on whether the cover of Alex's book, Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens, should have a blue or orange background. Alex is only 20, and currently splits his time between promoting his book and studying Filmmaking and Screenwriting at the University of the West of Scotland in Ayr. He has already won the 2013 Kelpies Prize, and must have his fingers crossed for the double. He says “I'm overjoyed to be shortlisted for this Scottish Children's Book Award. It's fantastic to think that my first published novel could get a response like this.”

Robot Chickens is published by Kelpies, an imprint of Floris Books - it's a good year all round for them, as they have two more books shortlisted. Pyrate's Boy (E.B. Colin) is in the same category as Alex and KelpiesTeen Dark spell by Gill Arbuthnott is nominated for 12-16s.

Congratulations to Alex, Floris Books and everyone else nominated. The winners will be announced on 4th March 2015.

DA Nelson: DarkIsle

DA Nelson DarkIsle (Strident).

My good luck in winning books through social media seems to be holding up! Many thanks to DA Nelson (Dawn) for all three books in her DarkIsle series which I won through her blog.

I've just finished the first book, which was awarded the Scottish Children's Book Award in 2008. I can see why - it's an engaging fantasy which starts in a real world which will be recognisable to many Scottish children. The main character is Morag, a young girl living with cruel foster parents who lock her in the cellar for some imagined misdemeanour. When she first hears voices, she is terrified - until she finds they belong to Bertie and Aldiss, a dodo and a rat! Against their better judgement, these two are persuaded to take Morag along with them in their quest - and what that is becomes clearer as the story progresses.


Their first task is to free Shona, a dragon who has been turned to stone by the evil Devlish - and Shona actually exists! Well, in stone form anyway. She's a sculpture by artist Roy Fitzsimmons and that's her on the left on Irvine Beach (© Copyright paul c and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence). The four friends then set off for the DarkIsle where they must rescue the Eye of Lornish. Do they achieve this? Well, that would be telling, but you'll have great fun finding out as you meet more lovely characters along the way, such as Henry the talking medallion, as well as some frightening and distinctly unpleasant ones, Tanktop the Klapp Demon being a case in point.

You'll also spot a few clues about what might have happened to Morag's parents, but I'm guessing the full answer to that won't be revealed until the second or third book. Those are DarkIsle: Resurrection and DarkIsle: The Final Battle. I'll be reading them next. Once I've finished, they'll be added to the children's collection at Glasgow Women's Library. Dawn actually works near there, so she came into the library to give me the books - you can see a picture of us together on Darkislethebook's Blog. Thanks again, Dawn, for your generosity.

On feet and two wings

Abbas Kazerooni On two feet and wings (Allen & Unwin).

Set during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, On feet and two wings tells the story of an Iranian boy, Abbas, who is soon to be 10 and therefore, unbelievably, eligible for call up to the army. Abbas' parents decide that he and his mother will try to escape via Istanbul to England, but at the last minute his mother is not allowed to board the plane and Abbas travels to Turkey on his own. Remember, as you read on, this is not fiction, this is a memoir. Kazerooni says:

"The book is based on real events that happened to me a long time ago when I was a child. To write it for you I have simplified some events and changed some details."

Abbas arrives in Istanbul, where he doesn't speak the language or understand the system, and has to fend for himself for 12 weeks while he tries to get a visa for the UK. I'm not sure I would like to do that now, never mind as a nine year old. Obviously Abbas has a lot to learn, not least how to judge character and who to trust. In general, the kindness of strangers is greater than that of the few contacts his father has managed to make for him. For example, the man who was to meet him at the airport and help him abandons him almost immediately. Fortunately, he finds a taxi driver with more integrity who helps him to find a cheap hotel where Persian is spoken.

Abbas manages to find his way around the city, change money on the black market (his father has given him a supply of dollars), persuade someone to translate for him at the British Consulate - and also make a living! His best friend is Murat, the hotel owner, whom he talks into giving him work serving drinks and shining shoes. Murat also teaches him backgammon, at which he proves to be a natural, and they make a lot of money taking bets on his performance. Not all is plain sailing though. A less attractive job is delivering packages for the jeweller who changes his money - what is in them is never disclosed, but the job earns him his first beating - and, at heart, Abbas remains a small boy who cries himself to sleep because he misses his mother.

There are traumatic scenes in the book, but it's not unhappy overall. The story zips along, and you really root for the resourceful Abbas who is far more cheerful than many would be in his situation. Also, because we know the adult Abbas is writing the story in real life, we don't need to worry about him surviving. However, as well as being a good story, I think the book would help a lot of children to understand issues of immigration, asylum and persecution. Unaccompanied child refugees still arrive in this country today, so anything that encourages empathy and challenges the dangerous rhetoric preached by such as the Daily Mail and Ukip is to be welcomed.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin for sending me this book, which I won in a draw. I will now be donating it to the University of Strathclyde for its Teaching Practice collection and, I hope, addition to its Refugees booklist.

Picture book round-up

Thanks to the good folk at Templar and Hachette for sending me the following:

Thomas Docherty The Driftwood Ball (Templar).

Every year the badgers and the otters hold a Driftwood Ball, but they never mix. Then, one year, otter Celia and badger George meet and fall in love - can the star-crossed dancers overcome the prejudices of their families? This is a lovely tale about differences and the silly reasons we find not to like other people - they're too loud, or they eat the wrong kind of food. At the end, Celia and George are still dancing "but always to their own tune."

Jonny Duddle Gigantosaurus (Templar).

Many children love books on dinosaurs. Here is a glossy addition to the canon. It's in the form of a story and the Gigantosaurus is made up, but all the other dinosaurs are real and there is an information section on them at the end. Add to this fold out pages and a poster jacket with a timeline on the other side and you have a sure-fire hit.

Craig Shuttlewood Who's in the tree that shouldn't be? (Templar).

More paper engineering - this time lots of flaps to lift. Who's in the tree that shouldn't be? Who in the snow just does not go? The rhyme romps along and children will enjoy guessing which "wrong" animal is behind the flap and where that animal should rightly be. I'd rather they had all ended up in their natural habitats at the end though, rather than in the zoo.

Shaun Tan Rules of summer (Hachette).

Shaun Tan's picture books are generally for an older audience than the titles above. This is a dark and surreal tale of two boys and what they learned last summer. Some commandments are quite sensible (never give your keys to a stranger), while others are bizarre (never leave a red sock on the clothesline). All have terrifying consequences - the red sock, for instance, conjures up a horrifically red-eyed giant rabbit. Towards the end, the smaller boy is padlocked into a runaway steam engine and the older boy runs across a dystopian landscape to rescue him with bolt-cutters. If this sounds sinister, it is! Be careful which child you give it to.

As always, I'll be donating these review copies to a local library.

Daughters of Time

One of my favourite blogs is The History Girls, a collaboration by a group of female historical fiction writers who cover different periods and different age-ranges, but are always interesting. I make a point of checking it every day, and never fail to learn something new. Now, some of the writers for younger readers have published a book, Daughters of Time (Templar), in which each imagines a story about a famous woman from the past.  The author also explains why she chose to write about that particular woman, and gives some factual information so that the tale is put into context. Then, if you like her work, there's a section at the back telling you what else she has written. The book's editor is Mary Hoffman, whose Stravaganza series I loved, and she says:

History is about chaps is still all too true a saying. So it's up to the fabulous History Girls to balance this approach with stories of impressive and inspiring women and girls - we were spoilt for choice.

They certainly were. The book ranges in time from Katherine Roberts' Tasca's Secret about a daughter of Queen Boudica (c.30-c.60 AD) to Leslie Wilson's 1980s tale of Greenham Common, which was one of my favourites because I've actually been there (though only for a day, not to stay at the camp). Some of the stories are not for the faint-hearted - the Boudica story and the next one, The Lady of the Mercians by Sue Purkiss, are quite bloodthirsty! But life in those times was like that: nasty, brutal and short for many people.

The book really appealed to me because of the work I do with the Glasgow Women's Library's Women Make History Group, which has a similar aim, so I was delighted when Templar agreed to send me a review copy. It will now find a home in GWL's new children's collection. However, I'm wondering how many of the women Scottish girls will actually connect with, as the list is very England-centric. The Greenham story will have universal appeal and there's a lot of interest in the Suffragettes, so Celia Rees on Emily Davison (Return to Victoria) will be popular - I think that was my overall favourite - but some of the others never figure on the Scottish curriculum. This is by no means a criticism of the book, which I really enjoyed, it just made me wonder if someone could write a Scottish equivalent. Any takers? And who would you put in it? Other than Mary, Queen of Scots who's a tad overdone!

Full list of subjects: Queen Boudicca, Aethelfled, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Julian of Norwich, Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth Stuart, Aphra Behn, Mary Wollestonecraft, Mary Anning, Mary Seacole, Emily Davison, Amy Johnson and the Greenham Common women.

Full list of authors: Penny Dolan, Adele Geras, Mary Hoffman, Dianne Hofmeyr, Marie-Louise Jensen, Catherine Johnson, Katherine Langrish, Joan Lennon, Sue Purkiss, Celia Rees, Katherine Roberts, Anne Rooney and Leslie Wilson