The Bunny family has adopted a wolf son, and daughter Dot is the only one who realises Wolfie is going to eat them all up! Dot tries to get through to her parents, but they are too smitten to listen. A new brother takes getting used to and when (in a twist of fate) it’s Wolfie who’s threatened, will his big sister Dot save the day?
Tracy has been in care as long as she can remember, and she hates it. So when a chance presents itself for her to get out, she jumps at it. But Tracy can never keep her mouth shut, tell the truth or turn down a dare for long, which inevitably gets her into A LOT of trouble. Jacqueline Wilson’s award winning series documents Tracy’s hilarious everyday life, from standing up to bullies in the playground, to starring in the school Christmas play, to finding the perfect family.
A BIG ISSUE BOOK OF THE YEAR
A beautifully illustrated story, written with a light and humorous touch, that celebrates nontraditional families and captures exactly what lies at the heart of family life — love.
‘Elvi, which one is your mum?’
‘They’re both my mum.’
‘But which one’s your real mum?’
When Nicholas wants to know which of Elvi’s two mums is her real mum, she gives him lots of clues. Her real mum is a circus performer, and a pirate, and she even teaches spiders the art of web.
But Nicholas still can’t work it out! Luckily, Elvi knows just how to explain it to her friend.
Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell-Boyce is an adventure about the Blythes: a big, warm, rambunctious family who live on a small farm and sometimes foster children. Now Prez has come to live with them. But, though he seems cheerful and helpful, he never says a word.
Then one day Prez answers the door to someone claiming to be his relative. This small, loud stranger carries a backpack, walks with a swagger and goes by the name of Sputnik. The family all think Sputnik is a dog and chaos is unleashed as suddenly household items come to life – like a TV remote that fast-forwards people and a toy lightsaber that entertains guests at a children’s party, until one of them is nearly decapitated by it – and Prez is going to have to use his voice to explain himself.
As Sputnik takes Prez on a journey to finish writing his guidebook to Earth called Ten Things Worth Doing on Earth, each adventure seems to take Prez nearer to the heart of the family he is being fostered by, but they also take him closer to the day that he is due to leave them forever . . .
A sensitively-told story that addresses the tricky subject of divorce with care and understanding, from Clare Helen Welsh and Åsa Gilland.
Laughing and playing together as a family on the beach, it seems the happy, warm days of summer will never end. Then, everything changes. Mummy and Daddy say they can’t live together anymore, and sad, worried feelings begin to emerge – It’s not fair! Was it all my fault? But, as time passes and the seasons change, it becomes clearer that hard times won’t always be quite so hard . . .
A lyrical book about the difficult emotions a child can feel when their parents break up, with an optimistic message of hope and resilience. Gorgeous illustrations and an emotive colour palette perfectly capture the nuances of emotion felt by both the child and parents during a separation. Much like Pat Thomas’s My Family’s Changing, Claire Masurel’s Two Homes and Patrice Karst’s The Invisible String, Everything Changes offers a way to help children understand their feelings during big changes in their family unit.
Aston’s Grandad Roy played in a steel band and Grandad Harry played the trumpet in a brass band. Aston always enjoyed going to visit them and listen to them practise. But soon he wanted to join in. So he asked Grandad Roy to teach him to play the steel drums and then he asked Grandad Harry to teach him to play the trumpet. He loved practising both instruments. Then the school needs a band to play at the school fair, and both grandads want their own band to play. Finally Aston had an idea – both bands join together to make one big band, and Aston joins in first on steel drums and then on trumpet. This delightful story of a mixed-race family reconciling their very different cultures is a wonderful celebration of diversity. Written by one of Britain’s foremost campaigners and media personalities and illustrated by a highly regarded illustrator, this book is sure to build on the success of My Two Grannies.
The Great Big Book of Families introduces children to the fact that not all families look the same. Featuring funny artwork and wonderfully accessible text this book celebrates each family in its own unique and wonderful way.
What is a family? Once, it was said to be a father, mother, boy, girl, cat and dog living in a house with a garden. But as times have changed, families have changed too, and now there are almost as many kinds of families as colours of the rainbow.
From a mum and dad or single parent to two mums or two dads, from a mixed-race family to children with different mums and dads, to families with a disabled member. This is a fresh, optimistic look through children’s eyes at today’s wide variety of family life: from homes, food, ways of celebrating, schools and holidays to getting around, jobs and housework, from extended families, languages and hobbies to pets and family trees.
The Great Big Book of Families is a brilliant introduction for children to all family types great and small.
Miss Clark has an exciting project for the class to work on – exploring their family trees! But when each child is asked to point to the place their parents come from on a map, Georgie doesn’t know which parent to choose – her dad is from Africa but her mum is from the UK. Where does she fit in?
Georgie dreads having to draw her family tree as homework but once she starts working on it, with the help of her parents she realises how special it is that the branches stretch so far and wide! And as the class all share their own family trees, the children begin to explore and celebrate each others’ heritage, and realise that all of their roots dig down into the same rich earth – so they’re not that different after all. A wonderfully life affirming picture book that celebrates diversity in all its forms.
Whether you have two mums, two dads, one parent, or one of each, there’s one thing that makes a family a family… and that’s LOVE.
Bookshop.org, the online bookstore, on a mission to support independent bookshops, is today announcing the shortlist for this year’s Indie Champions Awards, honouring individuals and organisations that have supported independent bookshops the most using Bookshop.org in 2023.
Unveiled on the day of Bookshop.org’s third anniversary, the awards shine a light on authors, publishers, podcasts, literary awards, festivals and organisations that have taken concrete steps to financially support independent bookshops through Bookshop.org, as well as using the platform in new, creative ways.
BooksForTopics is thrilled to be shortlisted alongside publishers including Bloomsbury and Canongate and organisations such as The Booker Prizes, Hay Festival and Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Here at BooksForTopics, we love recommending the best books and curating booklists for you, but we don’t directly sell the books ourselves. Instead, we work with outside companies to supply our popular book packs and individual books from our booklists to families, schools and other organisations.
Our aim is to provide quality purchasing choices to our website users, and it has been wonderful to see the upward trend in purchases from BookShop.org. Using the links on our primary school booklists, users of our website can buy full book packs or individual titles from our recommended booklists via Bookshop.org, while supporting independent bookshops.
Each of our curriculum topic booklists and year group recommended read lists link to our BookShop store, from which all purchases financially support local, independent bookshops. A portion of every other sale on the site goes into a shared pool – this pool is then split between all the bookshops on the platform, so users know they are supporting independent bookshops when they choose this purchasing option.
BooksForTopics has been shortlisted in the Indie Champions Awards in the Most Innovative Use of Bookshop.org category, which aims to spotlight organisations that have “linked to Bookshop.org, shared their love and support for the indies and created captivating book lists on the website”.
The team at BooksForTopics is over the moon at the news of the shortlisting for the Indie Champions Awards. At BooksForTopics, we are passionate about highlighting children’s books that will captivate readers and making sure those books reach children’s hands. We know that we share this mission with the incredible host of independent booksellers up and down the country, who work tirelessly to connect books and readers in the community. It is a pleasure to champion Bookshop.org on our booklists and to work together to spread the magic of reading.
The Indie Champions Awards categories include booked-based awards for Fiction, Non-fiction, Children’s and Lifestyle and Culture, as well as awards for publishers, publishing professionals, podcasts, content creators and organisations that have used the platform innovatively. In the children’s sections, we are pleased to see some favourite authors from our reading-for-pleasure booklists sharing the spotlight, including Katherine Rundell (Impossible Creatures), Natasha Farrant (The Rescue of Ravenwood), Frank Cottrell Boyce (The Wonder Brothers) and Louie Stowell (Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good). New this year, the Indie Champions Awards also include a Content Creator category, spotlighting social media influencers that have linked to Bookshop.org, shared their love and support for the indies and created captivating book lists on the website.
Nicole Vanderbilt, managing director of Bookshop.org UK, said:
“What a joy it is to shout about the individuals and organisations that have championed independent booksellers the most this year. For our team, it’s empowering to know that a lot of people share our passion for independent bookshops, and our mission to support them and ensure they thrive as a key component of the publishing ecosystem. We’re especially excited to launch our new content creator category this year, cementing our increased work with social media platforms and influencers and acknowledging their potential to expand the reach of indie bookshops even further. Huge congratulations to all the shortlistees, and we hope the brilliant work of the Indie Champions inspired even more people to become champions of independent bookshops themselves!”
Winners across all 11 categories, including the Indie Champion Title of the Year and Indie Champion List of the Year, referring to the title and list that generated the most money for indies in 2023 respectively, will be unveiled virtually on Tuesday 23rd January 2024.
You can find the full shortlists here.
Where next?
> Visit our Reading for Pleasure Hub.
> Browse our Topic Booklists.
> See our Books of the Month.
> View our Year Group booklists
© BooksForTopics 2015-2024
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