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Maurice Sendak, American born author of Where the Wild Things Are, has died at the age of 83. Over a career that began in the late 1940s he illustrated more than 100 books and wrote more than 20, but it was Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963, that made his name internationally, selling [...]

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Labour’s shadow media minister Helen Goodman has called for curbs on merchandising by children’s television programmes, insisting that the proliferation of products is placing an intolerable burden on hard-up parents. Speaking at Tuesday’s Westminster media forum, Financing Children’s Media, Goodman called for “limits” to the “growth” of merchandising. “Speaking as a parliamentarian I am not [...]

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Mr Sendak wrote and illustrated more than a dozen books, the most famous of which, Where the Wild Things Are was also turned into a Hollywood movie in 2009. The author died from complications resulting from a recent stroke according to his longtime editor, Michael di Capua.   In the video, shot for the Tate [...]

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Maurice Sendak, who died on Tuesday, was one of the few – and rare – writers who truly wrote for children. Not to entertain their parents, or to improve their social skills – he told the stories that children live themselves, wobbling on the uncomfortable brink between dreams, imagination and reality, where truth is whatever [...]

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Bob Geldof has had plenty of time to adjust to his new grandson’s name after his daughter Peaches chose it before the baby was even born. But two weeks after she gave birth to Astala Dylan WIllow Geldof-Cohen, the Live Aid rocker is struggling to even pronounce his grandson’s name. Speaking on ITV show Lorraine [...]

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He had repeatedly failed to turn up to court and even claimed he was too afraid to leave his house. But yesterday the internet troll who threatened to kill one of Tory MP Louise Mensch’s children finally faced justice. Frank Zimmerman, 60, had been found guilty in his absence last month of sending an electronic [...]

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A package of measures to help families and children will be unveiled in the Queen’s speech as the coalition attempts to offer a full legislative programme while maintaining its focus on rebuilding the economy. New laws to give parents more flexible leave and strong commitments to family-friendly working hours will be among the headline measures. [...]

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When a teenage Diana Spencer signed her record collection, she was guarding against her treasured albums being confused with those of her boarding school friends. Little did the future Princess of Wales know that simply writing Diana on LPs ranging from the Eagles’ Greatest Hits to Beethoven’s Symphony  No 5 would one day make them [...]

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The personal library – which includes several albums with the Princess’s name scrawled in pen on them – contains a variety from Bob Dylan’s Hard Rain to several Beethoven classics. It also includes country and western legend John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High and The Eagles’ Greatest Hits.   The late princess had personally signed the collection [...]

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She may be a familiar face on Sky, but it seems viewers may have to get used to seeing someone else present their late night news in a few months time. News anchor Anna Botting is expecting her first child and is due to give birth in four months time. The 44-year-old will no doubt [...]

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The six-year-old daughter of supermodel Natalia Vodianova has landed her first modelling job. Neva, who is the second of the Russian-born beauty’s three children with ex-husband Justin Portman, poses in a red dress for childrenswear label Caramel Baby and Child. She follows in the footsteps of Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia, ten, who shot her first [...]

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In her role as Bianca Butcher in EastEnders, we’re used to seeing Patsy Palmer covered up in tracksuits and her signature quilted jacket. But as she takes a six month break from the show, the actress is a world away from her character’s depressed life and wardrobe as she soaks up the sun in the [...]

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Jack Osbourne and his fiancé Lisa Stelly were overjoyed to welcome their first child into the world two weeks ago. And now the delighted new parents have shared the first public photo of the tot. The couple can be seen with their arms around  Sharon Osbourne as she cradles her new granddaughter, Pearl. The touching [...]

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Two months before the death of the Princess of Wales, Prince Charles decided it was time to tell his boys about the woman he loved. He sat them down together and tried to explain how Camilla Parker Bowles had re-entered his life — after a youthful love affair — and made him deeply happy. When [...]

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My daughter Tatum reminds me of a jungle cat, graceful, commanding, and yet always wary. We had once been close, but Tatum did not take well to the arrival of Farrah Fawcett in my life. By 1984, the situation with my daughter is tentative at best. She’s dating tennis bad boy John McEnroe, but it [...]

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Social networking sites and celebrities are creating a generation of ‘mean girls’, a leading public school headmistress has warned. In a fierce attack, Dr Helen Wright  said sites such as Facebook encouraged teenagers to believe ‘bitching is good’. She added: ‘They’re far more used to defriending friends online rather than befriending them in reality. If [...]

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Last month a woman named Anne Cox received the following message on Twitter: “I hope you die because you are a bitch.” This particular troll also tweeted that Cox has “big boobs and a big bottom she looks like a bitch”. The absence of a comma is the least troubling aspect of that message, but [...]

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A 13-year-old schoolboy at the time, the young William watched the programme in the study of Andrew Gailey, his house master at Eton, says the book by Penny Junor. Mr Gailey was said to have insisted that Diana explain face-to-face what she was about to do after learning about the BBC interview, and she eventually [...]

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At the age of 13, Prince William faced the daunting prospect of becoming a new boy in a school that was almost ten times the size of his old one. That was hard enough. What made his transition to Eton far more of an ordeal was that no one — from masters to pupils — [...]

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It has been the world’s fashion bible for decades, its pages adorned with beautiful clothes – all too often modelled by painfully thin women. But in a groundbreaking move, Vogue has pledged it will no longer use photographs of dangerously underweight models. In a statement published across all of its 19 international editions yesterday, the [...]

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I have nothing but happy memories of my parents. From the moment I was born, I was made to feel special. I grew up in a village near Heathrow airport. I didn’t see much of Dad until I was about five because he was always working, trying to improve our lot. But though money was [...]

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Faced with the news that his oesophageal cancer had returned and that he had only three months left to live, the brilliant Labour Party strategist Philip Gould decided not only to face up to his impending death, but to write about it. He died, aged 61, in November last year, with his wife Gail and [...]

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Celebrities are turning into mummy moguls, using their pregnancies as a way to substantially increase their income. In an attempt to extend their shelf life, a growing number of underemployed, or under-the-radar celebrities are using parenthood as their career Plan B. For celebrities like Jessica Simpson, Kendra Wilkinson and Tori Spelling, their baby bumps have [...]

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As love triangles go it could not have a more A-list cast — the supermodel, the Oscar-nominated actress and the billionaire who owns Gucci. Today in a Manhattan courtroom Linda Evangelista will give evidence in what could be one of the most expensive childcare cases in US history. The model claims that French fashion tycoon [...]

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The one-minute short features the pair preparing to mark the royal celebrations. They have already received the royal seal of approval, with the Duchess of Cornwall revealing that the pair are her husband’s “favourite people in the world”. Bristol-based animator Park at Aardman Studios teamed up with the National Trust to make the film, A [...]

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The billionaire father of Linda Evangelista’s baby wanted her to abort their son, her lawyer has claimed as the supermodel meets her former boyfriend in court over childcare support. And taking the stand, François-Henri Pinault admitted he had broken up with the supermodel after discovering she was pregnant four months into their relationship. ‘I didn’t [...]

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Teenagers gathered outside Seventeen magazine’s New York office to protest the magazine’s fervent use of airbrushing yesterday. 14-year-old Julia Bluhm then hand delivered 25,000 signatures to the magazine’s editor-in-chief, protesting its use of Photoshop. During the demonstration, the eighth-grade student and her peers demanded that editors of the Hearst title ‘commit to printing one unaltered [...]

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As someone who cheerfully admits that when she gets recognised these days, ‘it’s usually as Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother’, actress Blythe Danner is self-effacing to a fault. A career spanning almost 50 years, a marriage which survived the vicissitudes of Hollywood and an Oscar-winning daughter would give many women a reason to boast, but Danner is a study [...]

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The corridors of Television Centre often reeked of the class B drug as BBC employees and visiting pop groups regularly smoked joints. On one occasion, Rick Jones and Lionel Morton, presenters of Play School, got stoned before filming the children’s programme, it is claimed. As well as drugs, the BBC was apparently also a hot [...]

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The Queen is to make a guest appearance in children’s hit cartoon Peppa Pig – when the character visits Buckingham Palace. And the royal guest star is even seen joining in Peppa’s favourite activity, donning her wellies and jumping in muddy puddles. The show– to be screened next month – is designed to get young [...]

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When Justin Bieber arrived in the UK last week to promote new album Believe he was met with hoards of screaming girls who whipped themselves up into a frenzy as they waited outside his Kensington High Street hotel just to get a glimpse. Indeed, fans of the the teenage heartthrob were so desperate to attract [...]

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Cindy Crawford has posed with her mother and her daughter in a Mother’s Day campaign for JCPenny. The Crawford clan discuss their love for each other in a promotional video for the brand, dressed in chic over-sized white shirts and jeans. The supermodel’s ten-year-old daughter Kaia gushes on the video: ‘She’s the best mom in [...]

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Miss Wanamaker said she was angry at the way the corporation had handled the cancellation of the programme – which was at one time the UK’s most popular sitcom – after 121 episodes. Executives were believed to have worried that BBC output had become too focused on one social group, with shows such as My Family [...]

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Friday Night Lights author, Buzz Bissinger, loves to take a road trip to find inspiration for the stories that so far have won him critical acclaim and a plethora of awards. But an 11-day sojourn in 2007 with his disabled son to all the places they had lived as a family had far higher stakes [...]

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Levi Johnson, the father of Sarah Palin’s grandson, plans to name his new daughter after a gun. Jonson, 21, will call his second child Breeze Beretta Johnson. Her middle name is inspired by the Italian firearms manufacturer Beretta. He and his new girlfriend, Sunny Oglesby, are expecting after Sunny forgot to bring her birth control [...]

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Several people have been injured during a crowd surge at a gig by US teen band Mindless Behavior in London. The US boy band had to cut short their set on Monday (30 April) at the IndigO2 over safety fears for the audience which was mainly teenage girls. Mindless Behavior managed just three songs on [...]

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A teenage reader of Seventeen magazine is on a mission to eliminate the title’s excessive use of airbrushing. Julia Bluhm, a 14-year-old girl from Maine, has created a petition entitled Seventeen Magazine: Give Girls Images Of Real Girls! The eighth-grade student requests that editors of the Hearst title ‘commit to printing one unaltered – real [...]

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In the playground, you often see mothers still in their rollers or with a cornflake hanging onto the corner of their mouth. But usually through the morning haze, they have remembered their child. However, busy mum Victoria Beckham accidentally drove off without 13-year-old son Brooklyn as she set off on the school run in Los [...]

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Former Sex Pistol John Lydon has spoken candidly about how a severe bout of childhood meningitis left him unable to recognise his own parents. The punk rock legend admitted that the four-year ordeal, which began when he was just seven and living in London, was ‘cruel and tortuous’, as he believed it was all his [...]

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A drink-driving footballer who killed two young boys when he sped into their family car has been let out from prison for his son’s birthday treat, it was revealed today. Shamed Luke McCormick’s temporary release from jail sparked fury from the family of Arron and Ben Peak, who died after the ex-goalkeeper ploughed his Range [...]

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Mrs Banda said the pop star was not “barred” from returning to Malawi, known as the Warm Heart of Africa, but that her charitable involvement in the country was over. ”Madonna came to Malawi to build a school, an academy like the one Oprah (Winfrey) build in South Africa, but she changed her mind,” she told [...]

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When you’re Chief Scout, you  have to be prepared for important occasions. And none could be more momentous than meeting the Queen. Bear Grylls’s pride was evident today as he introduced the monarch at the annual scouting review, held at Windsor Castle. The adventurer, who has been Chief Scout since 2009, was there along with [...]

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Julia Bradbury, the rambling man’s hot-buttered crumpet, has been temporarily plucked from her natural habitat and taken into captivity. The twinkle in her eye is untamed, ditto the dirty laugh, but she is looking a bit restless, humanely penned in behind a pub table. Although the Countryfile presenter is the first to admit she enjoys [...]

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He’s hardly one to talk about unusual baby names, having gone against the grain for all of his own three daughters. But Sir Bob Geldof has certainly been left less than impressed about his daughter Peaches’ taste in names. The Boomtown Rats legend hates his grandson’s title so much, he’s even been begging her to [...]

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Pupils are ditching chips, hamburgers and sweets for soup, sandwiches and fruit juice at lunchtime in the wake of the school food revolution begun by Jamie Oliver, a new study reveals. But the chef warned that this “huge progress” was at risk from the government’s “short-sighted and dangerous” decision to exempt academies and free schools [...]

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Nicki Minaj has said she would be “very upset” if she heard children singing along to the “dirty” versions of her hits such as Stupid Hoe. “I don’t want children cursing,” she said. “I’m very strict on my nieces and my little brother. They have to listen to clean versions of music.” The rapper, known [...]

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Beyoncé is the most beautiful woman in the world – People magazine told me so. (I’d take it with a pinch of salt since they also saw fit to crown Bradley Cooper the “sexiest man alive” in a world where Ryan Gosling lives and smoulders.) And beautiful Beyoncé tells us that since becoming a mother, [...]

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“Ah,” cries Alan Titchmarsh, “I’m so happy.” He bounds over to 15-year-old Jack Mitchell – who has just told Titchmarsh of his plans to study horticulture at Plumstead College – and gives him a bear-hug. “Horticulture is a proper academic subject,” he enthuses. “People don’t recognise it, and they should. It’s so wonderful that you’re [...]

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“Politicians,” he says, “have been downplaying the importance of history as a subject in our schools but, if they had bothered to have a better grasp of history themselves, they might have avoided costly wars. Instead they act like children. The only time that they think matters is their own.” Since the actor, author and [...]

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He became a father for the first time last year when his ex-girlfriend gave birth to his daughter Tabitha. However, while the world exhaled a gasp of shock, no one was more surprised than Hugh Grant himself. But the actor admitted that becoming a dad has been ‘life changing’ and he would highly recommend it [...]

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