Books for Keeps

Issue 173 of Books for Keeps (November 2008) is now out and jammed full of interesting articles and reviews. It starts with a piece by Jill Bennett on "noisy" picture books - not, as I first thought, books with sound effects, but stories with lots of repetition, rhyming and sounds for the children to make. This is intended to provide fun and enjoyment while also paying attention to phonics - all the books she refers to are either in Jordanhill Library already, or soon will be.

Philippa Pearce, author of one of my favourite childrens' books, Tom's midnight garden, died in December 2006, and a series of memorial lectures has been organised. The first was by writer and academic Victor Watson, and a shortened version is published here. He concentrates on Pearce's "word perfect" skills - "every word, every nuance, every detonation and connotation, the sound, shape and melody of every phrase and sentence were considered, tried out and sounded out, and finally approved by a profoundly self-critical and discriminating wordsmith."

In some of the regular features, the "Authorgraph" is about Ralph Steadman, Michael Rosen writes about the death of his father in his Laureate's Log and the "classic in short" is Judith Kerr's Mog, the forgetful cat. This is another favourite - as a cat-lover myself I appreciate the accuracy of Mog's generally loveable gormlessness, and admit to shedding a tear when she finally used up her nine lives in Goodbye Mog. The usual comprehensive, age-defined review pages are complemented this month by a section on ten of the best Christmas books.

Follow the links for Jordanhill Library holdings of books by Philippa Pearce and Judith Kerr.

Philip Pullman and the censors

This is a bit out of date, but I'm having a Friday afternoon clear out! Philip Pullman's book Northern Lights was one of the most challenged books in the USA last year, where it is known, as was the film, as The Golden Compass. This was mostly because of its "religious viewpoint". The story was reported in The Guardian last month and Pullman himself wrote a piece on the evils of censorship in guardian.co.uk. Check out our own Banned Booklist (books which have been challenged elsewhere in the past, not books we've banned, as a student once wrongly assumed!) In the words of Oscar Wilde:

"There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written, that is all."

Age ranging part 5

Time for another round-up on the campaign against age-ranging, which has its own site, No to Age Banding with lists of supporters and their comments. Perhaps the most impassioned is Philip Pullman's speech to The Society of Authors Conference. CILIP has also issued a statement in favour of the campaign which appears on the site, and which has generated some publicity in the Guardian and the Bookseller. More comment is forthcoming from the States, e.g. in Read Roger, the blog of the editor of The Horn Book magazine, Roger Sutton. While generally supportive, he's a bit critical of Pullman's speech, or "rhetorical pearls" as he puts it. Roger feels the speech is too much about the feelings of the authors and illustrators, whom Pullman calls "the people who matter most", and not enough about the feelings of the children who will be reading the books:

"They are the people who matter most in this question. They are the ones who will have to suffer walking around with a book they want to read but are officially too mature for; they are the ones who will be told "you aren't ready" for a book deemed Too Hard. The problem with the age-banding proposal is not that it ignores authors, it's that it ignores young readers."

It's difficult to fault that.

National Year of Reading - November

The November theme for the National Year of Reading is Screen Reads. On the Jordanhill NYR page I have listed books in stock which have been made into films or TV programmes. We don't necessarily have the corresponding DVD for all of them, but I've marked those we have.

Junior Education PLUS.

The November issue of Junior Education PLUS - teaching resources for ages 7-11 - is now available. Literature related articles are:

Lorraine Petersen on The power of poetry (pp 12-13). Discover how poetry can promote inclusive learning and open up experiences to SEN children.

Mind how you go pet (pp. 24-25) - Huw Thomas on using Emily Madden's book about a pet shop - Thanks for telling me, Emily. (In stock at Jordanhill).

A creative topic on fairy tales - various articles from p. 34.

Huw Thomas again on Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, which is about to be released as a film (p. 47). The book is also in stock at Jordanhill.

Reviews of sci-fi books pp. 59-59.

More poetry

Last week's TES (17th October) had a couple of articles on poetry. In Poetry in decline, Helen Ward reports that Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, has warned that the teaching of poetry is being undermined by the free market. As fewer primary teachers appreciate verse, demand for new books to be published has dwindled. In Let verse loose in every corner of your school, Michael Rosen suggests that what is needed is a specific poetry curriculum and proposes some guidelines himself. To help you, don't forget our own Jordanhill poetry page!

Poetry competitions

The National Year of Reading has a competition for schools to win a visit from Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen. The closing date is 12th December.

The BBC wants primary school pupils to engage with learning and reciting poetry. Every primary school in the UK can enter a child aged 7 - 11 to compete for the title of UK Poetry Recital Champion, and the chance to represent their school and region in a BBC competition, to be shown on TV in spring 2009. The closing date is 19th December.