Books for Keeps

We've held Books for Keeps in the Library for years. Now you can access it online from http://www.booksforkeeps.co.uk/ - see the whole of the current issue and archived material from previous editions. Books for Keeps was launched in 1980 and has over 12,500 reviews on the website and more than 2,000 articles including interviews with the top children’s authors and illustrators. July 2010's edition includes articles on: nursery rhymes; Beverly Naidoo (whose Journey to Jo'burg is now 25 years old); animator / illustrator Leigh Hodgkinson; Rick Riordan (author of the recently filmed  Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief); and Tom Sawyer (Classics in Short). Plus all the usual news and reviews.

Beverley Naidoo at Yarls Wood Immigration Centre

Author Beverley Naidoo, who herself first came to the UK seeking refuge, is moved and saddened by the plight of children she meets detained in a UK immigration centre. In this Guardian article, she describes her visit to the centre to do a storytelling session with Karin Littlewood, the illustrator with whom she wrote a picture book, Baba's Gift.