Jef streatfeild biography of martin
Our Non-fiction catalogue features thinkers, writers and entertainers – from the QI team and Lenny Henry to Jan Morris and Katherine Rundell – whose books stimulate joy and laughter or new ways of thinking about the world.
Reading for Pleasure
Year 6
Year 5
Year 4
Year 3
Year 2
Year 1
Inside Out and Back Again
Thannha Lai
Demon Dentist
David Walliams
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Roald Dahl
Stuart Little
E B White
A Bear Called Paddington
Michael Bond
Each Peach Pear Plum
Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Goodnight Mister Tom
Michelle Magorian
The Suitcase Kid
Jacqueline Wilson
The Butterfly Lion
Michael Morpurgo
The Battle of Bubble and Squeak
Phillips Pearce
Flat Stanley
Jeff Brown
The Snowman
Raymond Briggs
Mortal Engines
Philip Reeve
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
Rick Riordan
The Iron Man
Ted Hughes
War Game
Michael Foreman
Room On The Broom
Julia Donaldson and Axel Sheffler
Sox and Pals
B B Taylor
The Many Worlds of Albie Bright
Christopher Edge
Journey to the River Sea
Eva Ibbotson
Varjak Paw
S F Said
The Last Castaways
Harry Horse
Lost and Found
Oliver Jeffers
The Tiger Who Came To Tea
Judith Kerr
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman
Sky Song
Abi Elphinstone
Diary Of A Wimp Kid
Jeff Kinney
Surf’s Up
Kwame Alexander
I Want My Hat Back
Jon Klassen
Not Now Bernard
David McKee
Time Travelling With a Hamster
Ross Welford
Matilda
Roald Dahl
The Railway Children
E Nesbit
A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Owl Babies
Martin Waddell
I Will Never Not Eat A Tomato
Lauren Child
Room 13
Robert Swindells
Kensuke’s Kingdom
Michael Morpurgo
The Yearling
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
My Headteacher is a Vampire Rat
Pamela Butchart
Superato
Sue Henda
Where The Wild Things Are
After dragging it out as long as I could, I have finally finished reading Blue Remembered Hills by Rosemary Sutcliff. Sutcliff’s memoir of her childhood and early adulthood is delightfully-written but cruelly slim. I rationed myself, reading only little bits at a time, trying to savour the treat as long as possible.
I should admit now that I’ve never read any of Sutcliff’s historical novels, which is bizarre. I am not sure how we never crossed paths during my historical fiction-crazed childhood but we did not and so this was my first introduction to her. I can’t imagine a better one.
[2019 Edit: Lies. As soon as I started reading The Eagle of the Night, I remembered it. I knew the story but hadn’t, in the way children don’t, realised it was by Sutcliff]
The danger of childhood memoirs is always that they might descend into that treacly swamp of sentimentality that can only leave the reader feeling queasy and the author, one hopes, embarrassed. This is decidedly not one of those memoirs. Sutcliff is affectionate in her remembrances but never boringly nostalgic for days gone by or pitying for the circumstances she faced. She has a marvellous sense of humour and wonderful eye for detailing, making the reader feel part of the episodes she shares with us.
Born in 1920, Sutcliff was the daughter of a naval lieutenant and, with the exception of long hospital visits, spent much of her childhood surrounded by other naval families, both in Malta and the UK. She developed Still’s Disease (a crippling and painful form of juvenile arthritis) as a toddler, and though her disability and the pain made her life different from most children’s, she does not dwell on these differences. As a child, she was determined to live as normally as possible, when not in hospitals or nursing homes.
While young Rosemary casually dismissed her disabilities, the situation was more difficult for her parents, especially her mother who had to care for an extremely sic .