Articles written in 2004

The Sea of Trolls
By Nancy Farmer
Simon & Schuster £5.99
The Valley of Secrets
By Charmian Hussey
Illustrated by Christopher Crump
Hodder Children's Books £12.99
When we plunge into the strange realm of fantasy literature for children, our one prerequisite is that the author accompanies us. Here is Lewis Carroll, twinkling merrily around the corners of Wonderland; here J K Rowling, holding hands with Harry; here Philip Pullman, wondering with Will, urging on Lyra.

Magic brings the past alive   December 17, 2004

When We Were Kids: how a child becomes a scientist
Edited by John Brockman
Jonathan Cape £16.99
Candid accounts of top scientists' early lives provide little guidance for those who want to grow their own genius

Many roads to glory   December 10, 2004

Are you zealous about science? One school in Slough certainly got its students fervently involved in a lesson about earth science by adopting a fresh approach.

Putting the passion back   November 26, 2004

Writing Together's new Schools Challenge will encourage cross-curricular projects. Victoria Neumark joins boys exploring brave new worlds in science

Escape to the witty planet   October 1, 2004

Mind The Gap: class in Britain now
By Ferdinand Mount
Short Books. Pounds 14.99
In 1910 an itinerant, half-educated house painter and decorator called Robert Noonan, better known as Robert Tressell, completed the first draft of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, which documents the futile lives of wage slaves who eke out a miserable existence in the building trade.

Heaping blame at Nanny's door   September 24, 2004


Toxic face fix    September 17, 2004

The potentially explosive tale of a young loner with a curious hobby has one glowing omission for Victoria Neumark

Fission for small fry   August 6, 2004

Seeing buttercups and barn owls for the first time can inspire mill-town children

Joys of a country outing   July 16, 2004

The tale of how a 12-year-old anorexic became a Victorian media celebrity is stark. Victoria Neumark reads the short life of Sarah Jacobs

Hungry for attention   July 16, 2004

What Makes Me, Me?
By Robert Winston
Dorling Kindersley £9.99
Victoria Neumark talks to Robert Winston about his new information book for young people

Gene genies   July 2, 2004

Victoria Neumark enjoys a celebration of English at its most inclusive and incorrect

Waxing lyrical on lexicons   June 11, 2004

"Science books for children are every bit as fascinating as fiction," says Abdul-Hayee Murshad, a judge of the junior Aventis prize for science books and headteacher of Hermitage Primary School, London.

Books of the year   June 11, 2004

Mind Wide Open
By Steven Johnson
Penguin £17.99
Science writing gets better all the time. Steven Johnson's "travelogue from the frontiers of human brain science", as renowned scientist Steven Pinker terms it, buzzes with snappy explanations of all kinds of new ideas, from the role of hormones in personality to how much of our activity is stored in physical memories beyond conscious control.

Mind wide open   June 4, 2004

Preview of the National Exhibition and Conference, Cardiff International Arena, May 27-28
Victoria Neumark discovers great enthusiasm at a Glamorgan school that is piloting the new qualification

We back the Bac   May 21, 2004

Victoria Neumark celebrates our enduring passion for chocolate

Box of delights   May 21, 2004

A rare account of life after the death of a sibling is a moving affirmation of existence for Victoria Neumark

O brother, where art thou?   April 30, 2004

Victoria Neumark on a young man's ultimate gap year - or five - in the Arctic of the 1930s

Love in a cold climate   April 16, 2004

Victoria Neumark introduces the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award

Get rhythm   March 12, 2004

The Mystery of Things
By A C Grayling
Weidenfeld & Nicholson. £12.99
This informative, witty collection of essays and reviews is loosely tied together by the idea that reflecting on the inner nature of things, the personal aspect of philosophy, happens most readily in the areas of the arts, history and science. As ever, Grayling, a prolific academic contributor to Prospect, the Times and other publications, is worth reading, partly for the sheer weight of knowledge he brings to bear.

In brief   March 5, 2004

The Privilege of Youth
By Dave Pelzer
Penguin £14.99
Happy families, as Tolstoy indelibly put it, are alike; unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. Abused children, of whom US author Dave Pelzer is one of the most famous, live each in their own special variety of hell, integral to which is the isolation from that golden realm in which other, blessedly happy, youngsters frolic heedlessly through their secure days.

Beaten but not defeated   February 6, 2004

Sugar has been savoured by the Persians, fought over by English and French, and used to amass fortunes for companies worldwide. Victoria Neumark looks at how a humble Polynesian plant ended up shaping the course of world history

Stirring stuff   January 30, 2004