This really is the book we¿ve been waiting for. Better than Best Practice is not just another evangelising text about the need to move classroom talk beyond the default of closed questioning, recall answers and minimal feedback but an offering that is richer, more subtle and much more useful. Alongside a rigorous but accessible examination of the thinking and evidence behind dialogic pedagogy the book provides videographic and transcript case material of dialogue as it happens, together with contextual information and commentaries. This makes enthralling reading - and viewing - in its own right as well as superb material for professional discussion and development. But perhaps the book¿s central virtue is that it lives as well as commends the dialogic principle. For this is a book of many voices - children, teachers, authors, researchers and invited commentators; and they do not necessarily agree, which is precisely the dialogic point. So it¿s impossible to evade the message that dialogue is indivisible. If it¿s good for young learners then it¿s essential for their teachers ¿ and for all of us.

- Professor Robin Alexander, Professor of Education Emeritus, University of Warwick and Chairman, The Cambridge Primary Review Trust, CU Faculty of Education