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Young Quills Award for Historical Fiction

Run annually by The Historical Association, Young Quills celebrates historical fiction for children and young adults. Longlisted titles are sent to selected schools where children and young people review the books, with these reviews forming the basis of the shortlisting process.

This year’s shortlist is full of BooksForTopics favourites, including several titles that have featured in our Recommended Reads and our National Year of Reading Booklist, such as Christina Balit’s The Boy Who Became Queen (5-8 Years), Jenny Pearson’s Shrapnel Boys (8-11 Years), Dance of Resistance (8-11 Years) and Under a Fire-Red Sky (11-13 Years).

For more information about the Young Quills Award click here, or check out the full shortlist below!

Confidence-Boosting Picturebooks

Picturebook

Growing up is exciting, but it can also be scary, and sometimes even the youngest readers need a little boost in their self-belief. With relatable characters, fun narratives and vibrant illustrations, picturebooks can help to lay the building blocks of resilience and self-love.

We are grateful to Frances Stickley, author of Wanda the Warthog Who Worried, for curating this brilliant list of the best confidence-boosting picturebooks. From a kangaroo in a crisis to a courageous flamingo to a boy with wings, this delightful collection of stories has something to offer every young reader!

SLA Information Book Award

Founded in 2011, the School Library Association (SLA) Information Book Award celebrates the best in children’s non-fiction. We are very excited to share this year’s shortlist for these awards, which includes a diverse range of non-fiction books that are sure to provide readers with new ways of looking at the world around them.

Four books are shortlisted in each of three age categories and we were delighted to discover some of our favourite non-fiction titles had made the cut across these categories. For older readers, the teen edition of Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women, a BooksForTopics Year 9 Recommended Read, is selected in the age 13-16 category, while younger readers will love Recycling Day, shortlisted for age 0-7 and featured in our Top 50 Recommended Reads for EYFS.

The impressive range of non-fiction titles in the shortlist is put to two panels, and each of the age categories has two winners: a Judges’ Choice and a Children’s Choice.

The 2026 Judges’ Choice winners are:

Age 0-7: Recycling Day: What Happens to the Things We Throw Away
Age 8-12: Choose Your Own Evolution
Age 13-16: Owning It: Our Disabled Childhoods in Our Own Words
Overall: Owning It: Our Disabled Childhoods in Our Own Words

The 2026 Children’s Choice winners are:

Age 0-7: Frog: A Story of Life on Earth
Age 8-12: Choose Your Own Evolution
Age 13-16: It’s a Brave Young World
Overall: Choose Your Own Evolution

For more information about the 2026 SLA Information Book Award click here, or check out the full shortlist below!

Best Primary Books for Children

50 Books for Primary School Children

Newly Updated – June 2025

Browse our reading list of 50 recommended books for Primary Schools. Update your class library or home book collections with our list of the best Primary School books, featuring everything from roller derbies and horses in shorts to an invisible spaceship and a boy who ate his school.

This primary reading list includes books to read with children alongside books for them to read themselves. Featuring popular storytime reads like The Great Crisp Robbery, early chapter books like Dino Dad, action-packed adventure books like Hunt for the Golden Scarab and top-notch non-fiction like Robots, this list really does have something for everyone.

This list has been put together based on a mix of titles taken from our popular individual year group reading lists and with the help of the team of librarians and booksellers at Peters.

If you’re a parent or teacher looking for the best books for Primary School children, look no further than our list. Whether you are looking for funny read-alouds, new releases or educational reads, we have something to suit every young reader’s interests. Our Primary School booklist includes both fiction and non-fiction recommendations to offer primary school children a deliciously tempting offering of reading-for-pleasure choices.

There is also a downloadable checklist and a printable poster, and schools can purchase full packs of these books from Peters or select packs of the KS2 books or KS1 books from the list.

If you are looking for more specific recommendations, you may like our Year Group Lists (see below) or Curriculum Topic Booklists.

Browse the primary school reading list below or scroll down to find more purchasing options and printable resources.

The Branford Boase Award

Founded in 2000, the Branford Boase Award is given annually to the author and editor of the year’s outstanding debut novel for children, and consistently highlights future stars at the start of their children’s writing careers.

We are very excited to share the shortlist for these awards, which includes a great mixture of romance, sci-fi, thrillers and family stories.

The shortlist features BooksForTopics Year Group Recommended Read, Ella Dove’s How to Roller-Skate with One Leg, which tells Maya’s story as she navigates her tween years with limb difference. Also shortlisted are Jack Mackay’s atmospheric thriller Gloam, Janeen Hayat’s historical family tale Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree, and Kenechi Udogu’s near-future sci-fi, Augmented.

Three very different tales of romance complete the list: Becki Jayne Crossley’s friends-to-lovers novel Tart, Asli Jensen’s inner-city love story Love on Sight, and Harry Trevaldwyn’s hilarious rom-com The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King.

For more information about the 2026 Branford Boase Award click here, or check out the full shortlist below!

The CLiPPA Shortlist (CLPE Poetry Award)

Now in its third decade, the CLiPPA highlights the year’s best new poetry for children. Each year, the award brings to light a shortlist of outstanding new poetry collections for children, with a particular ear for those that are best to speak and perform aloud.

We are very excited to share the shortlist for the 2026 awards, described by Chair of Judges, Nicola Davies, as “a glorious diversity of voice and form.” Featuring poetry for children of all ages, the shortlisted collections include interactive rhymes for the youngest readers, authentic and personal poetry, and even poetry for gamers.

From Five Little Friends, which encourages children and grown-ups to use their fingers, hands and more to really enjoy rhymes, to the bold and beautiful This is Not a Small Voice which showcases 100 poems by Black poets, this shortlist really does have something for everyone. The 2026 winning title is The Poetry World of John Agard.

For more information about CLiPPA click here, or check out the full shortlist for the 2026 award below!

Accelerated Reader (AR) – Best Books By Year Group

Best Accelerated Reader Books for Children

Find Recommended Accelerated Reader Booklists by Year Group

For nearly 40 years, Renaissance Accelerated Reader (AR) has aimed to motivate children to read through comprehension quizzes. To get the most out of AR reading practice, it’s crucial to offer a choice of high-quality books that align with children’s reading levels. This ensures they are appropriately challenged, improving reading comprehension and helping to build foundations for a lifelong love for reading for pleasure. Find out more here.

At BooksForTopics, we believe that quality, well-matched texts can make a big impact on children’s reading journeys. Not all texts are equal when it comes to quality, and we make it our mission to highlight only the best for you.

Teachers, parents and librarians have all asked the same question: how do you find the best quality Accelerated-Reader-quizzed books for each reading age and stage? To answer the query, we’ve selected a list of 20 recommended AR books for each year group. All of the books have passed our quality screening process and have been handpicked to help the cream of AR books rise to the top.

On this page, you’ll find expertly curated booklists categorised by year group, featuring the best Accelerated Reader books for each age. We’ve focused on titles that are not only AR compatible and within the relevant reading levels, but also the books that children want to pick up and read and will enrich their reading experiences. Our goal with these lists is to help parents, teachers and librarians easily find top AR books that support literacy development and get the best out of the Accelerated Reader experience.

Explore our year group AR book recommendations and help your child discover fantastic reads that will boost their reading enjoyment.

Year 8: 50 Recommended Reads

50 Best Books for Year 8 (Children Aged 12-13)

Updated for 2026

Welcome to the recommended reading list for Year 8. If you’re looking for a list of the best books for Year 8, you’ve come to the right place. Our team of experts has selected a list of the 50 best books for Year 8 to read. We’ve tried to include something for all tastes – so look out for mysteries, fantasies and dystopian reads alongside poetry, relatable fiction and books to make you laugh out loud…

With a mix of classic and contemporary titles, our selection of recommended reads is designed to provide children with a diverse range of literature that will encourage them to become lifelong readers. Our Y8 booklist includes relatable Y8 reads such as Like a Girl, popular funny fiction like Steady For This and timeless classics including The Hound of the Baskervilles. This collection also features Y8 historical fiction, such as War Girls, alongside fantasy adventures like Deeplight. The non-fiction picks cover everything from the inspirational story of Malala Yousafzai to a brand new view of world history in Musical World.

Having quality reading materials to hand can make all the difference as young people continue their reading journeys throughout KS3. Our panel of reading experts, teachers and secondary school librarians helps us to read and review the best titles to recommend to each year group. Along with evaluating the current popularity of books, we carefully assess each title on the merit of its age-appropriateness, quality of writing and illustrations, and ability to stimulate imagination, critical thinking and creativity.

This reading list of recommended books for Year 8 is curated by experts to match the developmental stage of 12 to 13-year-olds and to cater to their interests, providing the right level of challenge for Y8s as they grow through the second year of secondary school. There is also a downloadable checklist and a printable poster, and schools can purchase full sets of the 50 books through Peters.

Browse the Y8 reading list below or scroll down to find more purchasing options and printable resources.