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Joy Court - Editorial Expert
Leading children’s literature expert and former Chair of the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals
Joy Court is co – founder of All Around Reading, having previously managed the Schools Library Service in Coventry, where she established the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards and the Literally Coventry Book Festival, as well as being the Reviews Editor of The School Librarian and Chair of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals. She now just concentrates on books and libraries as a freelance consultant while continuing to be an activist with the Youth Libraries Group and sits on the National Executive of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. She has chaired and spoken on panels at festivals and conferences around the UK as well as delivering keynotes and workshops.
She is a Trustee and member of the National Council of the United Kingdom Literacy Association, where she sits on the selection panel for the UKLA Book Awards, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of The English Association and an Honorary Fellow of CILIP. Author of Read to Succeed: strategies to engage children and young people in reading for pleasure (2011) and Reading by Right: successful strategies to ensure every child can read to succeed (2017) FACET.
This is the award-winning YA author’s first prose novel and her first venture into writing for a younger middle-grade audience, but what a triumph it is! It wears its meticulous research lightly but gives an authentic and atmospheric account of what life was like for families on the Home Front at this end of the war. Exhausted and traumatised by The Blitz and the privations of rationing, they now must face the terror of the VI bombs unpredictably arriving and causing massive destruction.
Our narrator, 12-year-old Stan and his friends Billy and Nellie, think they have been ... View Full Review
With its striking cover and high impact illustrations, this is a book that any teen is likely to pick up and read, but it is published in a new series from Barrington Stoke that aims to fill the gap in the provision of really high interest and age-appropriate novels with a reading age of six, making this perfect for struggling readers or for newly arrived EAL students.
Steve Cole is something of an eco-warrior himself and he often chooses an environmental theme for his fiction. In this punchy teen drama, he follows two friends who believe that ‘protest ... View Full Review
It takes considerable skill to write an engaging story in very few words, especially when the words must be suitable for a reading age of six, as in this new series of books from Barrington Stoke, which fills a crucial gap in the provision of age-appropriate materials for seriously struggling readers. In fact, I have heard many authors declare they find writing for this acclaimed publisher, their most challenging, but satisfying task.
Carnegie winner Tanya Landman proves yet again that she is more than up to the challenge! Each well-chosen word creates atmosphere and drives the plot forward. The Price ... View Full Review
Every book from the Nero and Branford Boase winning author Liz Hyder, is markedly different, but equally enthralling and each one seems even better than the last! This one certainly showcases her storytelling powers.
The overall narrative is about a teenager getting to know his estranged grandmother Oma, of whom he had no memory of ever meeting. He is now allowed to visit her, in her isolated cabin, once a month and soon begins to relish and look forward to those visits.
As they take the first tentative steps towards getting to know one another, Oma introduces him to the ... View Full Review
A new book from Shaun Tan is always a highly anticipated event by teachers and families alike and this beautiful hardback will certainly not disappoint.
It is, as an object, difficult to define -a unique hybrid of picturebook and graphic novel, combining wonderful, often wordless, full colour, double paged spreads, with the more usual multiple panels that progress the story along.
The minimal yet lyrical, text is either beneath or opposite the panels and in this story our seemingly human narrator, who gazes out to us from the cover, introduces herself and in a deadpan teenage voice describes and shows ... View Full Review
With bold, distinctive illustrations and a great graphic layout helping to tell the story, this picturebook is perfect for bedtimes, but also as a class read aloud to share because of its wonderful message about stories.
It is the power of stories that has attracted a visitor to Mama and Papa Bird’s cosy nest. At the end of the story, they discover a fifth chick who tells them “That was a really good story”. They all settle down to sleep, but when it gets really dark ‘PING’ Otto’s eyes open wide. So, ... View Full Review
From the award-winning author of the fabulous Dadaji’s Paintbrush, comes another story which reflects the life of a child of Hindu heritage growing up in Britain, the like of which she didn’t see in books when she was growing up.
It is a joyous and heartwarming introduction to the Diwali festival through the eyes of Jai, a very excited young boy with an extended family who enjoy preparing for a festival which celebrates the values of gratitude and sharing. With the lively cartoon like illustrations bringing a real bounce and enjoyment to the different activities on ... View Full Review
This stunning, dramatically illustrated, narrative nonfiction tells the story of the famous 1970’s discovery of the skeleton of Lucy, our earliest ancestor, and of the Laetoli Footprints by Mary Leakey and her team of palaeontologists, in a really engaging and accessible way.
It starts by showing young readers how very different our world looked three hundred million years ago and the dramatic tectonic forces which shaped the land masses we know as continents today.
Then it imagines Lucy’s world in the Africa of four million years ago and the creatures that roamed there, in the shadow of ... View Full Review
This extraordinary and beautiful book arose from a connection the best-selling author of the Little People, Big Dreams series made at the grassroots organization @coffeesforgaza, which sends funds directly to families in Gaza.
Nour Ferwana and her family live in a tent in the Gaza strip, where life is unsettling and difficult. When Maria Isabel began exchanging messages with Nour, she learned how she kept her daughters' spirits alive at bedtime with the stories she and her husband told them.
Ten of these traditional fables are gathered here. What makes this a completely unique collection is that each story is ... View Full Review
Dr Kanani is a brilliant science communicator, as she has proved in books like Can you Get Music on the Moon? Here she has written a book that, as she hopes in her dedication to teachers everywhere, is ‘The physics textbook you’ve always wanted for your students’.
With some stunning illustrations from Liz Kay and an engaging design and layout, this is indeed a very long way from a boring science textbook. It takes ten core scientific concepts and explains not only why it is important, but gives the origin of the idea or discovery and, ... View Full Review
Stunningly illustrated in the author’s distinctive style and with an inviting premise of being an actual space tour, where we the readers are boarding the spaceship with the most knowledgeable and friendly guide accompanying us, this is a highly appealing book on a very popular topic.
So, the book opens with ‘ This is your Captain speaking..’ and the itinerary (or contents list) is at the bottom of the page telling us what we have ahead of us together with a handy safety guide recommending that we stay in our seat!
Every two-page spread in this beautifully ... View Full Review
If ever a book were to be created to match the epic summer that we have just endured, then this lyrical picture book must be it.
The Green Child is a fairy like embodiment of nature, and she has an urgent message for humanity. We meet her as she wakes from a winter sleep, deep in the forest, which is captured in the most delicate detail by Brita Teckentrup’s stunning illustrations, made with beautifully textured digital collage.
Through the onset of spring and into a glorious summer, the colours and vegetation change, but ‘soon the air is ... View Full Review
