search.noResults

search.searching

saml.title
dataCollection.invalidEmail
note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
reviews


Frida’s husband, who is on a very large scale and has ‘big froggy eyes’. They both laugh when they see three giant pairs of Diego’s pink underpants hanging on the washing line. When they know each other well,


8 – 10 Junior/Middle continued Every Day is Malala Day


HHH


Rosemary McCarney, New International, 978 1 78026 326 7, £9.99 hbk


Frida tells Mariana about a terrible accident which happened to her when she was eighteen and about to follow a medical training. A tram crashed into the bus she was travelling in and she sustained serious injuries to her spine and legs. These injuries caused the artist pain all her life but one good thing came of her misfortune. Her father brought a gift of oil paints to the hospital and her career as an artist began. So Frida is known not only for her vibrant creative work but also for her courage in re building her life after such life changing injuries. Frida pays tribute to Marina’s bravery, too, in overcoming her fear as a small girl coming on her own to the house and studio of a great artist. MM


Published in association with Plan, the international charity whose mission is to improve the lives of children and whose initiative ‘Because I am a Girl’ campaigned to ensure every girl in the world gets a minimum of nine years of quality education, this book is derived from a video produced for the first Malala Day in 2013. The book is a letter addressed to Malala Yousafzai, the inspirational girl who captured the world’s attention when she was targeted and shot by the Taliban for insisting on the right of girls to go to school. written


girls from around the world,


Accompanying the letter


are photographs


simply of


Zimbabwe to Myanmar, from Brazil to Liberia, who express their sympathy, sisterhood and admiration for Malala,


from her


Many of these girls have first-hand experience of the barriers that stand in the way of education, from discrimination


poverty and early marriage. The book is a powerful reminder of what she has achieved and the work that is still to be continued. An extract from the speech she gave on her 16th birthday in 2013 to 1000 delegates at the United Nations Youth Assembly concludes the final chapter, including her often-quoted words: ‘One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world. the only solution.’ SU


Education is


Martin Brown’s Lesser- Spotted Animals


HHHH


Martin Brown, David Fickling Books, 40pp, 978 1 910200 53 7, 54pp, £12.99 hbk


Had enough of Hippos?


Bears? Tired of Tigers? Then this book is exactly what is needed, a tribute to these little-known rarely


10-14 Middle/Secondary There May Be a Castle HHHH


Piers Torday, Quercus, 293pp, 978 184866 862 1, £12.99 hbk


Anything written


comparatively new author is always worth reading, with his latest novel no exception. It concentrates on eleven-year-old Mouse, a boy small in stature but big in courage. Wandering away from a devastating family car crash in the deepest snow during Christmas Eve, Mouse transforms all that happens into one of the fantasy worlds he so loves to occupy in real life.


freezing, he peoples this universe with favourite toys, but there is also a villain there out for his blood. His older sister, meanwhile, finally comes to consciousness after the crash and sets about looking both for her brother and also for much-needed help in the


Concussed and dangerously by this still


wild, under-populated moors where she now finds herself. Written with quiet humour, this


story aims high but only hits some of its targets. Following a continually developing fantasy world


anything can happen sometimes puts a strain on those looking for clearer boundaries.


giving anything away, falls a little short. But on the plus side, Torday writes beautifully and this story is still a fine effort, going for daring imaginative stakes that more often than not come off. Less successful are too many deliberately lame couplets


failed musician and a joke about how a toy dinosaur might speak that soon outlives its sell-by date. Full marks though for a story not afraid to take on some of the fundamentals of life while still managing to preserve the lightest of touches. NT


The Road to Ever After HHHH


Moira Young, Macmillan Children’s Books, 240pp, 978-1-5098-3258-3, £9.99 hbk


Set on the backroads and small towns of an unspecified part of America, there’s a dreamlike quality to Moira Young’s new novel, which is filled with angels, ghosts, and the spirit of the movies too. Yet at the same time, it’s one of the most vivid, lively, uplifting and funniest books of the year. Davy David is an orphan. His home is a den in the graveyard and he makes some sort of living sweeping pictures in the dust. He copies his pictures


book, Renaissance Angels. Some of the people of the town of Brownvale are kind to him, others are anything but. Pastor Fall for example, a hypocrite who sternly preaches one thing while practising the opposite. When Davy catches him out in this,


from his favourite library


no matter how hard he protests he’ll keep the pastor’s secret, the boy knows he’ll have to leave town. Fate, or something more than that because there’s definitely something inhabiting the wind that stirs up the town’s dust, brings him to Miss Flint, an eccentric old lady, equally determined to leave Brownvale. The two unlikely travelling companions pile into Miss Flint’s car and hit the road, 13 year old Davy at the wheel, a stray dog named George Bailey in the back (It’s a Wonderful Life is one of Davy’s favourite films). It’s on their journey that a miracle


occurs, ‘something wonderful’ says Davy. Their destination is Miss Flint’s childhood home and she’s planned to take her own life when they arrive. Instead, as they get nearer their destination in a variety of vehicles, including a stolen truck loaded with turkeys, motorcycle and side car, and stolen police car, Miss Flint travels in a different direction. At the end of the


from a The ending, without where


road there’s a home to be made for Davy, and peace and redemption at last for Lizzie Flint. The story asks readers to accept the miraculous, and rewards them in return with a beautifully written story, full


scenes, and the sense that life can indeed be wonderful if you follow the right road. LS


Kings of the Boyne HHHH


Nicola Pierce, O’Brien Press, 336pp, 978-1847176271, £6.99 pbk


Author of a number of very fine historical novels for children, Nicola Pierce here continues the story that began in Behind the Walls, set during the siege of Derry, and follows three


leading up to the Battle of the Boyne. Once again the storytelling is taut and compelling and reveals without overstatement how all great historical events are composed of and shaped by the actions and experiences of those caught up in them, from king to foot soldier. The book opens with a heart-


young soldiers in the days of memorable characters and Bored with and violence to bravery and determination.


spotted alternative animals that have waited in the wings for so long. Martin Brown’s artwork will probably seem familiar from the hugely successful Horrible Histories series, but here he gets the chance to be author as well as illustrator in a quirkily entertaining antidote to your average animal book. Many of these hitherto unsung creatures, like the ili pika or the hirola antelope, are critically endangered, while so little is known about the Southern Right Whale Dolphin it is simply classified as ‘data deficient’. Other stars celebrated here


flower bat, a gentle fruit-eating pollinator, the


with its deadly bite, the endearingly pink lesser fairy armadillo and the prairie-dwelling black-footed


An amusingly different approach to natural history, fully of witty asides and jokey commentary, but also with a serious message about loss of habitat through human interference, tourism and hunting. SU


ferret. include the dagger-toothed Cuban solenodon


rending scene that sets the tone for what follows. Gerald O’Connor, a young teenager from Offaly, and one of those fighting for King James, is forced to watch the execution of two young people caught with lime (for poisoning the Jacobites’ water supply). Unable to stop it, Gerald is deeply affected by the shocking, seemingly arbitrary events, as the two teenagers, barely more than children, die horrible deaths in the midst of the beauty of the Irish countryside. On the opposing side to Gerald, brothers Robert and Daniel Sherrard, who played leading parts in Behind the Walls, also have their lives changed for ever, the excitement they feel at being part of a great movement


Books for Keeps No.221 November 2016 27


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32