The theme for this month is reading – for children and about child care – and we have some interesting angles on the subject. Marilyn Brocklehurst on ways of encouraging children to read. Simon Machin has been studying ripping yarns for boys, and looks at their historical and social context – and (in view of their content) their surprising durability. Emma Moore, who hit the headlines with her “Pink stinks” campaign, touches on the differences in reading material aimed at boys and girls. Nicola Hilliard underlines the importance of libraries in the face of the tsunami of electronic information systems.
Vic Citarella points out the need to fill the gap following the loss of quangos, and the need for professional associations to play key roles. The Editorial takes a similar line, urging professionals to be creative in response to the threat of cuts.
Keith White recounts the value of cross-generational links in residential care, and the way in which carers can become family. Also on a residential care theme, A.J. Stone has another chapter of Beyond Caring, as Aaron starts to look to the future.
As usual News Views contains a dog’s dinner of items, including child poverty, the lessons from Baby Peter, foster care recruitment, family eating habits, fitness, fun and football, archiving theses, disciplining children, ‘research’, changing the clocks, the NCBC and the NCB.
The two key texts this month have been selected by Robert Shaw to represent work undertaken in the early years of the National Children’s Bureau – on Perinatal Mortality by Neville Butler and Dennis Bonham, and From Birth to Seven by Ronald Davie, Neville Butler and Harvey Goldstein.
There are two book reviews. Valerie Jackson has considered Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender. Judith Niechcial’s biography of Lucy Faithfull: Mother to Hundreds not only profiles an outstanding person but also gives a picture of the way services developed in the twentieth century. We end with a little poem associated with the review, as a tribute to Lucy Faithfull and Barbara Kahan.