What They Say
Feedback is vital and Clive actively seeks out readers’ views and criticisms via school and group visits, roadtesting ideas and sample text and via comments sent to this website. Here are some of the testimonies and official reviews Clive and his work have garnered over the years.
What Publishers and Editors Say
"Clive Gifford is one of my dream authors! He delivers his text on time, and it is always of the highest standard. His book planning and research is first rate. Clive will take the time to find a way to approach a subject from a different angle to the norm. He is prepared to spend hours (or even days!) tracking down unusual facts or statistics. I look forward to the next project with Clive enormously."
Melissa Fairley - Publishing Director, Red Shed, Egmont UK.
"We really appreciate Clive’s intelligent, highly professional approach and unstinting enthusiasm for each project. He suits his writing to the target audience and offers in-depth information in a lively and interesting way."
Su Swallow, UK Publisher, Evans Publishing Group
"Clive Gifford is that rare breed of writer, someone who understands the entire editorial process, supplies excellent copy and is a must to contact for truly original ideas."
Rob Kemp – Editor, Men’s Health Magazine
"An editor couldn’t ask for a better writer than Clive! Besides being a joy to work with, his material is accurate, interesting, current, and on time."
Betsy Pringle, Editor, becker&mayer! Books
"Clive covers subjects in intriguing and exciting ways, but never at the expense of hard facts. His work is full of imaginative methods to present information."
John Friend – Editor, Eaglemoss Publishing
What Reviewers Say
World Issues: Racism – Belitha Press
"World Issues: Racism packs a real punch and the reader is positively encouraged to interact with ideas. Impressively, the author avoids preaching to and patronising his reader. The issues are considered in manageable portions: a clearly focused question opening the discussion followed by relevant facts and figures which dramatise the question in stimulating fashion. The Citizenship Strand of the National Curriculum requires that pupils should have, ‘knowledge and understanding about becoming informed citizens’. This book makes a serious contribution to the process."
John Polley, Senior GCSE Examiner and Educational Consultant
The Flask of Doom, The Time Warp Virus – Usborne
"At last! Some puzzle books with a difference, designed to make learning science fun. Once I managed to wrest these books from my daughter (an A-level student) I, too, was totally fascinated by them. They will certainly have a place on my class reading shelves. What better way to learn without realising it?"
School Science Review, Association Science Education.
So You Think You Know Dr Who? - Hodder
"This amazing book will make you realise just how much you don’t remember from all those many hours spent in front of the telly, or possibly behind the couch!...All eras of Doctor Who are covered, from the very first episode, to the new 2005 series. No true fan would want to miss this book, with its potential for settling the arguments of who really does know the most."
Infinitas – The Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror website
How The Future Began: Everyday Life, Machines – Kingfisher
"Author Clive Gifford traces the origins of many of our present marvels and explains how they have transformed everyday life. Engaging and highly readable, How the Future Began: Everyday Life will enhance classroom discussion of the feasibility of some of the technological innovations discussed in the book."
Education World.
"Written in a clear, brisk style and packed with interesting photographs and exciting futurescapes, their vision will have many young readers agog at things to come. It seems that conventional books will eventually be replaced. A dreadful thought but if true, one that makes these books particularly worth hanging on to. You won’t find a better memento of a bygone medium."
The Times Educational Supplement (TES), Laurence Alster
"How The Future Began: Machines by Clive Gifford, is a crisply written, jazzily-illustrated version of 'Tomorrow's World'."
The Daily Telegraph
1000 Years of Famous People - Kingfisher
"Where this book is different is that it provides an intelligent, entertaining and sometimes inspiring account of the noteworthy and the notorious. This innovative resource will challenge and appeal and should inspire many classroom discussions."
Best Books of 2003 - Scholastic
"The selection is inspired and sometimes quirky, which makes for compulsive browsing. An essential reference book."
Junior Education
The Kingfisher Book Of Football
"This isn't just a treasury of facts on pitch and players, foul and misconduct, on-ball skills or pictorial tips on defending. This book is about love. The author really believes in everything. You don't just see a picture of Emilio Butragueno and learn that the Spanish striker was a winner of five league titles in a row, you feel the admiration for his lightning reactions, the awe for his awareness in the penalty area. World Cup or not, it all adds up to a marvellous introduction."
The Independent
"This has to be the classiest football around at the moment. It might be billed as a children's book, but adults will enjoy it too, since the clarity of the both text and pictures encompasses all that is good in an information book. Take, for example, the explanation of Law 11, the one that causes more arguments on and off the pitch than any other rule. It is, of course, the offside rule, which has a page to itself and is dealt with in crystal clear text and diagrams. With bite-sized chunks of text, photos and computer-generated images that show information at a glance, the book has a very slick, modern look. It's the full ninety minutes."
The Manchester Evening News, John Malam
What Teachers Say
"Clive Gifford was the most awesome of successes at Osaka International School. He had enormous appeal to all levels of students from ECP through to Grade 10. He had kids hanging on his every word in his excellent presentations. We will definitely be inviting him back for a repeat in the near future. To add to this, he is also an extremely nice chap!"
Greg Watt - Head Librarian, Osaka International School
"Clive Gifford's two day residency at our school was a highlight of our World Book Day celebrations. The format of Clive speaking in individual classes was most successful and enabled Clive to talk to individuals in the group, answering questions and gearing the talk to the age and interest ranges. It also enabled teachers and library staff to develop reading interests amongst students."
Anthony Tilke - Chief Librarian, Yokohama International School
"Our students were most impressed with Mr. Gifford's conversational style of delivery and sense of humour. His willingness to speak more often to smaller groups helped them truly get to know him even in short sessions. Now students regularly come to the library asking for 'books like Clive writes'."
Courtney Lowe - Media Manager, The Canadian Academy