BfK


REVIEWERS IN THIS ISSUE


Brian Alderson is founder of the Children’s Books History Society and a former Children’s Books Editor for The Times. Gwynneth Bailey is a freelance education and children’s book consultant. Clive Barnes, formerly Principal Children’s Librarian, Southampton City is a freelance researcher and writer. Diane Barnes, was a librarian for 20 years, mostly as a children’s specialist, working in Kent, Herts, Portsmouth and Hampshire, and Lusaka (Zambia) with the British Council. Jill Bennett is the author of Learning to Read with Picture Books and heads up a nursery unit. Jon Biddle is English Coordinator/Reading Champion at Moorlands Primary Academy in Norfolk, and co-founder of the Patron of Reading scheme. Rebecca Butler writes and lectures on children’s literature. Jane Churchill is a children’s book consultant. Stuart Dyer is an Assistant Head Teacher in a Bristol primary school. Anne Faundez is a freelance education and children’s book consultant. Janet Fisher is a children’s literature consultant. Geoff Fox is former Co-Editor (UK) of Children’s Literature in Education, but continues to work on the board and as an occasional teller of traditional tales. Sarah Gallagher is a headteacher and director of Storyshack.org www.storyshack. org


Christine Hammill teaches in a college of further education and is also an author Ferelith Hordon is a former children’s librarian and editor of Books for Keeps Matthew Martin is a primary school teacher. Sue McGonigle is a Lecturer in Primary Education and Co-Creator of www.lovemybooks.co.uk Dr. Lucy Pearson is Lecturer in Children’s Literature, Newcastle University. Margaret Pemberton is a school library consultant and blogs at margaretpemberton.edublogs.org. Val Randall is Head of English and Literacy Co-ordinator at a Pupil Referral Unit. Andrea Reece is Managing Editor of Books for Keeps. Sue Roe is a children’s librarian. Elizabeth Schlenther is the compiler of www.healthybooks.org.uk Nicholas Tucker is honorary senior lecturer in Cultural and Community Studies at Sussex University.


Books About Children’s Books A History of Children’s Books


in 100 Books Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad, British Library Publishing, 272pp, 978-0712356985, £25


It needs strong wrists, but this large, sumptuous book containing over 250 colour illustrations is certainly worth a look. Not exactly scholarly, with too many repetitions and some careless inaccuracies, it still brings a fresh eye to children’s literature mostly past but some present primarily from Britain but touching on the rest of the world too. And while well-trodden ground is traversed once again, there is also less familiar fare. Did you know that Queen Victoria had a book published when she was aged ten? Or that H.G.Wells described Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty as ‘the sympathetic story of a soundly Anglican horse’? Or that the American Rifle Association in 1938 objected to Disney’s film Bambi on the grounds that it gave hunters a bad image? Or that well over a thousand new books for


children


continued to be published even when Britain was otherwise up against it in 1943?


words: ‘Remember always that the parents buy the


books, and that


the children never read them.’ But children often managed to find less respectable material, and this current book also gives space to chap books, Penny Dreadfuls and comics. Politics also get a mention, from


Nazi re-writing of fairy tales to Soviet propaganda


conveyed in brilliant The journey taken by children’s


books over the centuries from early solemn sermonising to the freedom they enjoy


today is told not just


within the text but also through its splendid illustrations. Crabbed print can be seen giving way to something more playful, and sedate pictures get larger, take on colour and start appearing in less expected places on the page. Books aiming solely at instructing and improving young readers stuck it out gamely for some time,


despite Dr Johnson’s wise


new picture books that had a direct influence on early Puffin publications. It is common to think that Britain during the last century avoided direct political discussion when writing for children. But that was not always the case as Kimberly Reynolds has pointed out in her recent ground- breaking study Left Out: the Forgotten Radical Tradition in Children’s Publishing


in Britain. The books


she discusses do not appear in this present volume, but there are plenty of others that do, from missionary texts to fairy tales and pop-up books. For older readers, there is also the chance to come across particular stories that have since fallen away but still have a special significance for all who once might have enjoyed them so very much. NT


Under 5s Pre – School/Nursery/Infant


Kechi’s Hair Goes Every Which Way


HHHH


Tola Okogwu, ill. Naomi Wright, Florence Elizabeth Publishing Ltd, 28pp, 978 0 9954869 2 8, £6.99,


pbk


Kechi’s mum is away and dad is in charge. There are three simple steps to follow to get Kechi ready for school: uniform,


breakfast and hair. With


dad in charge Kechi enjoys a pile of pancakes for breakfast instead of a bowl of porridge and chooses her favourite princess outfit instead of her school uniform. But what about Kechi’s hair? Kechi has lots and lots of wonderful,


thick, bouncy curls.


Mum is brilliant at creating different hairstyles: twists, puffs and ballerina buns. Although Dad is willing and tries very hard he can’t manage any of these and time is passing. In the end he gives up and lets Kechi choose. Her choice is to leave her hair exactly the way it is, ‘going this way, going that way, going every which way.’ This is a lovely story celebrating


the closeness of a father daughter relationship and encouraging young black girls to be proud of the beauty of their natural hair. It is third in a series on this theme from author


20 Books for Keeps No.231 July 2018 Tola Okkogwu. The pattern and


repetition in the storytelling make this a great book to read aloud and Naomi Wright’s delightful illustrations add to the warmth. SMc


Something Fishy HHHHH


Polly Dunbar, Two Hoots, 28pp, 978 1 5098 3799 1, £11.99 hbk


The wonderful Polly Dunbar has done it again! This is the funniest, cleverest picture book ever about a new sibling in the family, and the fact that it is a cat suffering the jealousy, removes the sting just


that little bit from any older sibling who might be having this read as a preparation of what is to come. Told in the first person by the cat (with a nice range of idiom), we see her in the bosom of her loving family, telling us that when she wants fish, she always gets it. Except that now, she doesn’t! Someting strange is in the air. Parcels that should have fish in them have baby clothes instead; toys suddenly appear; the cat’s room is re-decorated; Mum’s tum gets enormous. What is a cat to do? What she does is stand on mum’s tum and shout ‘fish’ over and over. Mum doesn’t get the message and when mum and dad suddenly leave for what we know is the hospital, cat convinces herself they are going fishing. She is shocked and horrified when the hoped-for fish turns out to be a baby. Out into the rain she goes, sad and lonely, only to be pursued by her family with the biggest, fattest fish imaginable! She feels loved once more, even though she must put up with the baby’s kisses. Wonderfully imaginative with a cat that makes every facial expression possible in her fight to get her fish, this will appeal as much to parents as to children, and the shared laughter will be a delight. ES


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