Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Author & Illustrators

Paul Mason Books

Funny Beasts

Non-fiction, Picturebook

Heaps of funny facts and cartoons about the animal world’s most hilarious adaptations!

Animals have developed some downright strange features and behaviours to survive day in and day out. This book’s lively artwork and side-splitting jokes bring these behaviours alive – and uncover the awesome science of the animal world. Meet the quirkiest, the flashiest, the stinkiest and of course the absolutely funniest animals on planet Earth!

Funny Nature is a series of books presenting science learning through laughter. Brought to you by the author and illustrator of The Poo That Animals Do, this series covers science topics including evolution, adaptation, habitats, anatomy, physiology, life cycles and much more! Perfect for fans of facts and fun aged 6+.

How to Design the World’s Best Bike: In 10 Simple Steps

Paul Mason

Non-fiction

Imagine someone gave you a sackful of money and told you to build a bike. You’d definitely want it to be the best bike in the world. But how do you go about designing THAT? Armed with your own imagination and some smart research, find out how you can transform a fantasy design into an actual dream product. You’ll apply real-world design considerations to your ideas, refining your design to make it workable and achievable as it takes shape.

Sports Academy: Swimming

Paul Mason

Non-fiction

Build your swimming skills with the Sports Academy series.

Looking to take up a new sport? Or just thinking about ways to keep fit and healthy? This book is a great introduction to all the important swimming skills you’ll need. Full of skills tips and illustrations showing key techniques, you’ll discover everything you need to be a successful swimmer.

The series Sports Academy covers rules, equipment and major competitions through specially commissioned, step-by-step illustrations that clearly shows skills and techniques needed for a sporting children aged 9+.

Sports Academy: Gymnastics

Paul Mason

Non-fiction

Build your gymnastics skills with Sports Academy: Gymnastics

Looking to take up a new sport? Or just thinking about ways to keep fit and healthy? This book is a great introduction to all the important gymnastics skills you’ll need. Full of tips and illustrations showing key techniques, you’ll discover everything – from training to competing. Perfect for readers aged 9 and up.

The series Sports Academy covers rules, equipment and major competitions through specially commissioned, step-by-step illustrations that clearly shows skills and techniques needed for a sport.

How to Design the World’s Best Rollercoaster

Paul Mason

Non-fiction

Imagine someone gave you a sackful of money and told you to build a roller coaster. You’d definitely want it to be the best roller coaster in the world. But how do you go about designing THAT? Armed with your own imagination and some smart research, find out how you can transform a fantasy design into an actual dream product. You’ll apply real-world design considerations to your ideas, refining your design to make it workable and achievable as it takes shape.

Comic Strip Science: Physics

Jess Bradley & Paul Mason

Graphic novel, Non-fiction

This 60 page book is bursting with accessible information! A great read, which will certainly hook children into reading lots of fascinating science information.

This non-fiction book covers a wide range of topics covered throughout the Science National Curriculum to engage and support children with new learning. This colourful book will engage readers from age 7 and beyond. Although set out in a fun and light-hearted comic strip layout the book contains lots of science vocabulary with visuals to support understanding and recognises famous scientists for their work.

Each double-page spread covers the topic interestingly and succinctly to ensure children will not be overfaced with information. This would be great to complete as a shared read at the start of a science lesson in class for teachers too!

Part of a series this physics book features short, funny comic strips that explain a process or aspect of science. Around the strips, diagrams and panels further expand on the information for the topic. They are a fantastic way to engage children with science and each page is an excellent learning tool for parents and teachers

Skate Monkey: The Cursed Village

Paul Mason

Chapter book

Monkey and his friends, Zu and Sandy, lived in the Emperor’s Cloud Palace. But they played all sorts of tricks on people, so, as a punishment, the Jade Emperor sent them down to Earth. They can only return if they prove that they can use their magical powers for good. Adventure is never far away!

In The Cursed Village, something is very wrong in Weston. People are living in fear of the half-zombies, half-vampires that are roaming the streets. Can the friends save the village from the monsters?

Bloomsbury High Low books encourage and support reading practice by providing gripping, age-appropriate stories for struggling and reluctant readers, those with dyslexia, or those with English as an additional language. Printed on tinted paper and with a dyslexia friendly font, Skate Monkey is aimed at readers aged 8+ and has a manageable length (72 pages) and reading age (7+). This collection of stories can be read in any order.

Produced in association with reading experts at CatchUp, a charity which aims to address underachievement caused by literacy and numeracy difficulties.

Your Brilliant Body: Your Growling Guts and Dynamic Digestive System

Paul Mason

Non-fiction

Packed with amazing facts and eye-grabbing images, Your Growling Guts and Dynamic Digestive System takes a different approach to teaching the reader about the digestive system.

Every spread opens with an amazing science fact about the human body – for example – Your tongue print is just as unique as your fingerprint! – then goes on to explain how scientifically this is possible. By exploring these attention-grabbing sections, readers will build up their understanding of the different digestive organs and the process of digestion.

Detailed diagrams and amazing images illustrate the lively, factual text. Your Growling Guts and Dynamic Digestive System looks at the organs of the digestive system and how they work together to get the most out of our meals! What does the liver do? What happens to all the food we eat? Why does the small intestine need to be so long? Answers to all these questions and many more can be found in this fascinating title.

Daily Life in Ancient Benin

Paul Mason

Non-fiction

This book explores what life was really like for everyday people in Ancient Benin. Using primary sources and information from archeological discoveries, it uncovers some fascinating insights and explodes some myths. Supported by timelines, maps and references to important events and people, children will really feel they are on a time-travelling journey when reading this book.

The Vikings are Coming!

Paul Mason

Non-fiction

This book describes how the Vikings invaded and conquered much of Britain, and voyaged far and wide. Viking longships, raids and fighting style are all explored, alongside their beliefs and ways of life, to build up a true picture of these most famous invaders. The book concludes with a look at the Vikings’ legacy in Britain today.

Illustrated with a mix of illustrations and found objects, each book in the series describes a famous civilisation, its customs and organisations, how it began and expanded, and its eventual decline.

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