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Article: The Return of the Iron Man.(children's book by Ted Hughes)
- Article from:
- The Horn Book Magazine
- Article date:
- March 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Horn Book, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The end of 1999 overflowed with "best of" lists: best of the year/ century/millennium. As I was preparing this essay, I happened to be reading a list of the ten children's novels most likely to be read in a hundred years' time. The list was published by Books for Keeps, a British children's literature journal. The Iron Man was there. In England, The Iron Man, first published in 1968 by Ted Hughes, the late Poet Laureate of England, has been read and loved at home and at school by generations of children. In America, published as The Iron Giant, the book has had a very different history. It has gone in and out of print, with different publishers, and is not well known. Even ...