Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Home > Books of The Month > Best Books This Month – January 2025

Best Books This Month – January 2025

It’s easy to feel lost in the flood of so many new children’s books available. Each month, our Review Panel reads scores of new books and we highlight five of our recently published favourites.

This month, our panel of experienced teachers, librarians and children’s book experts has carefully selected five outstanding titles for you to read, and real life tales feature strongly in this collection. Martin Impey’s picturebook BLITZ brings to life the experience of a family living in London in World War Two, told from the children’s perspective and accompanied by atmospheric watercolour illustrations. For older readers, Cleopatra challenges preconceptions of one of history’s most fascinating women, and is recommended by our Review Panel for classes studying Ancient Egypt or biography writing. Rise and Fall is commended by the panel for its eye-catching illustrations and a well-organised structure, making the complex and detailed history of empires accessible and enjoyable.

The panel’s fiction picks for this month include an epic quest in Super Happy Magic Forest and the Humongous Fungus, a colourfully illustrated first chapter book featuring a cast of five happy heroes and a lot of fun – perfect for reading aloud! Adventure also awaits older readers in Hunt for the Golden Scarab, the first in a new time-travelling series from M.G. Leonard. Our Review Panel particularly recommend this historically-backed book to accompany any curriculum unit on Ancient Egypt.

As the new year dawns, discover our Review Panel’s top new children’s books for you to read in January 2025.

Add to Favourites

Please login to bookmark

Buy from BookShop.org

Support independent bookshops

Hunt for the Golden Scarab

M.G. Leonard & Manuel Sumberac

Chapter book

Hot on the heels of their award-winning, multiple middle-grade book series spanning beetles, trains and birds, M.G. Leonard is back, launching a new action-packed, time-travelling adventure series with an initial foray into Egyptology.

Sim lives with his mother, Callidora, in a flat above the museum of Sir John Soane. One evening, while Sim and his mum are training in the museum, they hear voices approaching. Callidora pales and opens a door in the museum, rushing Sim inside, opening a world of questions that even she can’t avoid forever.

Underpinned by historical fact, a tale of adventure, lies, trust and time travel unfolds, sweeping you along with twists and turns that keep you gripped and wanting to read on.

A brilliant book to accompany any unit on Ancient Egypt, readers will look forward to discovering what, where and when Sim, Jeopardy and Nelson will get up to next in this promising series.

BLITZ: One Family’s War

Martin Impey

Picturebook

This wonderful illustrated story by Martin Impey details the moving story of one family living in London during World War Two.

The story is told from the perspective of the two children in the family and explains what life was like before the war and then what happens once the war starts. There are specific details included in the book, for example, the exact time the war was announced, what rationing was and what happened during an air raid.

The atmospheric watercolour illustrations complement the story superbly, and put visual storytelling at the centre of the reading experience. The wartime mood set by the nostalgic colour palette combined with the snippets of archived material like letters and broadcasts begin to bring alive a historian’s sense of recreating details of the war from an ageing generation’s living memory and recorded material – an important aspect of historical understanding to grasp for today’s younger readers who are more familiar with the ease of video footage and livestream accounts of news events.

This beautiful and moving book is well researched and rich with detail, making it an excellent addition to any classroom.

Cleopatra: The Woman Behind the Stories

Alexandra Stewart & Hannah Peck

Non-fiction

‘Cleopatra: The woman behind the stories’ is the true recount of the life of one of history’s most fascinating women.

The book tells the life story of Cleopatra with the idea in mind that what we think we might know might not be the full story.

The book begins by describing the formation of Alexandria (where Cleopatra lived) and the rise of the Ptolemy family from Greek leaders to rulers of Egypt. It then describes Cleopatra’s childhood and education, suggesting that she was smart, well-educated and charismatic. We learn of her rise to power, her relationship with Julius Caesar, Rome, Mark Anthony and the many battles, schemes, negotiations and sly plots that are reported to have taken place. Adults and children who know a little of Cleopatra’s story will find that their understanding greatly improves.

An A4 hardback book, this is a very interesting read that would be appealing to non-fiction fans or useful to accompany an Ancient Egypt history topic.

Super Happy Magic Forest and the Humongous Fungus

Matty Long

Chapter book

If you enjoy an epic quest and love an illustrated early chapter book, this book is for you!

With five loveable, happy heroes, a faun, unicorn, fairy, gnome and mushroom, there is a character for everyone. The book is a visual delight with detailed, colourful illustrations, which are scattered throughout the book, which also includes double page spreads of scenes. There are strong themes of friendship and working together on how to overcome the evil Fungellus before he takes over the Super Happy Magic Forest with his toxic spores. Humour is present throughout the illustrations, writing and speech bubbles, leading to lots of giggling together.

This book is fun to read aloud and is also good for readers starting to read chapter books. In addition to the text, there are speech bubbles from characters all throughout, which are popular with children to read aloud.

Suitable for a class read aloud from Early Years but especially suitable as a class read for KS1, where you can immerse yourself into adventure, silliness and lots of fun! It is part of a series of books, so be prepared to read other adventures by Matty Long. It has also recently been made into a new television series due to its popularity.

Rise and Fall: Great empires that shaped the world

Peter Allen

Non-fiction

Rise and Fall: Great Empires that Shaped the World is a comprehensive, engaging and informative book that introduces young readers to the history of some of the most powerful and influential empires in human history.

Packed with eye-catching and vivid illustrations each page offers a wealth of information on empires from the Minoan Civilisation to The Kingdom of Ayutthaya. Through exciting storytelling and a well-organized structure, the book makes complex historical events accessible and enjoyable for children ages 8 and up.

As a curriculum lead in school, I also found this very useful for my own subject knowledge as there is information for each empire on topics such as religion, arts, architecture and decline. A brilliant addition to any library area for inquisitive minds who love history!

Buy from BookShop.org

Support independent bookshops

Many thanks to our review panel members Gabrielle McConalogue, Katherine Wright, Jane Evans, Emma Keogh and Kathrine Gilbert for reviewing this month’s selection.