Books in Cassell education series

Voices Off is a companion volume to the popular and successful After Alice and The Prose and the Passion, the final text in a trilogy of books devoted to children's literature, edited by Morag Styles, Eve Bearne and Victor Watson. As before, the essays bring together a deep knowledge of, and concern for, children and their reading. It features contributions from three distinguished novelists, Jan Mark, Jill Paton Walsh and John Rowe Townsend. Other new voices include the artist Satoshi Kitamura (with four colour illustrations), two booksellers (Kate Agnew and Elizabeth Hammill from Heffers Children's Bookshop, Cambridge and Waterstone's, Newcastle, respectively), Geoff Fox, Anne Rowe, Charles Sarland and many more. The writers focus on a variety of genres and issues relating to children's literature both in contemporary contexts and with reference to the past.Voices Off seeks to understand young readers as they grapple with (or reject) texts that absorb them: Point Horror to wordless picture books; the poetry of John Bunyan to oral and physical texts created by children in drama; comics, letters and series books to Aesop's fables. It sounds a warning note to those powerful voices which would narrow, limit and control children and their texts.

This publication is designed for pupils at Key Stage 3. Teachers will be particularly interested in the use of original source materials which are included as an integral part of the text, and which compliment and illustrate the narrative of the growth of Belfast in the 19th century. They are accompanied by questions and activities suitable for pupils of all abilities in years 1-3 of the secondary school. The learning activities are designed to ensure that pupils encounter a number of historical skills, in addition to the basic comprehension of the topic. These include an appropriate understanding of concepts such as industrialisation, urbanization, continuity and change, and skills such as empathy and analysis. The broad topic of Victorian Belfast has been arranged so that the story of Belfast in the 19th century can be taught as a study in development.