Contents

Issue 9.4 | Winter 2007/2008


Highs and Lows of the Armadillo's Year

January, Philip Pullman was granted the freedom of the city of Oxford. February, An award-winning children's book was banned from some US schools and libraries because it contains the word "scrotum"...


News

Book world

Moves, mergers, and all the rest of the industry news.

Awards

Longlists, shortlists and announcements of winners.

Obituary

Madeleine l'Engle, best known for her A Wrinkle in Time, died on September 6th, aged 88.

Notices

Mary Hoffman's picture book, Princess Grace, was published by Frances Lincoln on October 4th.

If you would like to send donations to Armadillo in the form of a cheque, please make it payable to Rhiannon Lassiter and send it to: Armadillo, c/o Rogers, Coleridge and White, 20, Powis Mews, London, W11 1JN

Please note that the current issue page now replaces the Armadillo home page as the first page you will see when arriving at the magazine. Returning visitors should adjust their bookmarks accordingly.

Feature

Article: Happy ever after - a spin too far?
by Sarah Hackett

With the belief that children's books should only have happy endings and urging parents to boycott books that differ from this, The Happy Endings Foundation (THEF) sparked a controversial debate in the publishing world this autumn. However, all was not as it appeared to be. It seems that THEF was a very clever marketing ploy by Egmont publishers of authors such as Malorie Blackman and Julia Donaldson...


Article: Save a Literary Barn Owl

The phenomenon that is Harry Potter has blinded many readers to the predicament of children's books,their authors and their publishers. In a book market place that is ever more commercial and aggressive, children's books have to sell very fast and very cheaply - and then they fall off the edge of the world...


Reviews

Picturebooks

Junior

Collections and re-tellings

Film

Poetry

Teenage

A Matter of Life and Death

a thematic teenage fiction review by Gill Vickery
includes: Before I Die by Jenny Downham
and Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nichols


Non-Fiction

* This review has been re-run since it mysteriously vanished from an earlier edition of Armadillo.

Credits

Armadillo is edited by Mary Hoffman, written by a host of generous reviewers and web-edited by Rhiannon Lassiter. The original Armadillo image was created and donated by Jane Ray. Armadillo acknowledges The Bookseller as its principle source of Book World and Award News. For more information see the expanded credits.