Fabulous Frankie is a beautifully told and fabulously illustrated story of acceptance and valuing kindness. All Frankie the flamingo wants is to be fabulous! But he’s literally surrounded by so many fabulous flamingos, so how on earth can he stand out from the crowd? He looks to all the latest fashion accessories to achieve his goal of being truly fabulous, but in the end it is Frankie’s friends who will help him learn that the things that really do make him fabulous are on the inside. This flamboyant tale of kindness and learning to be yourself is filled with stylish illustrations and celebrates the joy of learning to value what’s on the inside.

Many of us can relate to the frustration of a sleepness night – especially after this past week of too hot, too stormy or too rainy bedtimes! Arlo the lion is no exception; he is struggling to sleep and feeling helpless at being all out of ideas for what to try next. Arlo meets Owl, who offers a different perspective. He learns that Owl can sleep through the day – even through the sights and sounds of all the other animals being awake. Fortunately for Arlo, Owl has some sleep-inducing tricks of her own that might just help Arlo too. Owl teaches Arlo a bedtime song, which focuses on thoughts of happy places, a relaxation of the body, a slowing down of breathing patterns and meditation about sinking into the soft ground. The song works a treat, but in his excitement over his new found success, Arlo accidentally wakes other animals up! Happily though, they can use the song too to settle back to sleep.

This longer picturebook is the story of a polar bear who dreams of exchanging his snowy white coat for new fur that is as colourful as the rainbow he sees in the sky one day. The bear’s conspicuous new appearance leads him to be captured and exhibited in a zoo.

This engaging and thought-provoking story by master storyteller Michael Morpurgo is coupled with beautiful illustrations, making it one of our top choices for storytime in Year 2 and the surrounding year groups.

Slime is so often a winner when it comes to making children laugh. In the absence of make-your-own-slime kits or putty-testing YouTubers, young slime aficionados might be easily persuaded to keep their fingers dry and open the pages of this super-fun text about the animal world.
Lenny the Lemur is taking a trip and decides to track down the source of some mysterious slime. On his quest, he encounters opossums, dolphins, salamanders and sea-lions and finds out about the unique properties of the goo each creature produces.
Plenty of humour coupled with oodles of facts make this a winner with children and offers a fun and unique twist on information books about animals.

When Mrs Stewart invites a small penguin to visit on a spontaneous visit to London Zoo, no one could have imagined that later that day they would find him on their doorstep, rucksack on his back and an adventure about to begin…

Einstein the Penguin is the debut children’s novel for Iona Rangeley, aptly brought to life with the help of the award-winning illustrator, David Tazzyman. A lovely mix of whodunnit with a slightly preposterous story of a penguin who comes to live with our two heroes, Imogen (age 9) and Arthur (age 6), causing them to put aside their sibling squabbles and come to his rescue. Rangeley manages to pull at your heartstrings as you come to understand each of the characters’ insecurities, bringing together the fear of losing a friend with the loneliness associated with never having had one. The grown-ups are scatty at best and young readers will love it as our heroes come to put one over on them.

Lovely as a class readaloud, children will enjoy the parody of incompetent teachers/zoo-keepers/detectives/parents while also prompting several discussion points about right and wrong. This could be a fun next step for readers who have enjoyed Paddington or Erica’s Elephant.

Anna Dupont arrives at the dilapidated Hotel Flamingo after inheriting it from her Great Aunt Mathilda, who left it to her in her will. Shocked at the state of the “sunniest hotel in town”, Anna decides to restore the hotel to its former glory and sets about the enormous task of cleaning it up alongside a team of animal staff. Imaginative, accessible and little bit wild, Hotel Flamingo is a fabulous early chapter book with fun illustrations set in pinks and greys. This is the first title in a growing series that will appeal to readers aged 5-8.

This is the story of a class of children learning about different animals. At the end of the term, when they have discovered all kinds of amazing things, the teacher asks them to share their ideas about which is the most important animal of all. The pupils share fascinating facts and illustrate how each species fits into a wider ecosystem. We loved this precise perspective and it seems that the British Ecological Society do too, as it is the first children’s book they have endorsed. The book fits neatly into KS1 Science curriculum and is accompanied by school resources to download.

This award-winning book showcases wild and wonderful beasts, from tigers and brown bears to binturongs and Ice Age beasts. Hugely popular in primary classrooms due to its vibrant, appealing illustrations and accessible and interesting style of text, this informative compendium is the kind of non-fiction that children like to come back to again and again. You may also like the other books in the series, The Big Book of Bugs and The Big Book of the Blue.

Following on from Lifesize Animals and Lifesize Dinosaurs, Lifesize Baby Animals does exactly what it promises and over the course of its 32 oversize (30x30cm) pages shows the actual size of real-life babies, from tiny baby possums (the size of a full stop) to gargantuan baby blue whales (the size an ambulance at birth).

The illustrations are attractive and often portray the animals within their natural habitats. The text is accessible and clear, suitable from 3+, and introduces basic factual information (“It’s actually seahorse daddies that give birth: to up to 2,000 babies at one time!”) combined with engaging questions (“Imagine having that many brothers and sisters…How would you remember all their names?”).

Reading this book aloud will prompt a chorus of oohs and aahs. A nice finishing touch is the final page, which shows a summary of each baby and adult creature with is length shown in ‘lifesize books’ and an invitation to measure yourself in books to see how you compare – this could make an excellent maths link, measuring out bears, elephants and whales on the classroom floor.

Lifesize Baby Animals is a beautiful classroom book, which would be invaluable during a topic on lifecycles/growth.