‘Forget the Pharaohs’? When I’ve written a book with ‘Pharaoh’ in the title?!?
I can explain. But let’s swirl back in time, not to the era of the pyramids, but to 2011, when my kiddo was in Year 3. Thanks to a brilliant teacher who brought the subject vividly to life, Eddy had the best time ever with the Ancient Egypt topic, never shutting up about kings and magical curses, mummies and treasure-filled tombs! It was great to hear Eddy’s obvious enthusiasm for Tutankhamun and his ilk. But as always with history, I found myself thinking, “Yes, but what about the ordinary people?”. And fast forward to last year, when I sat down to write this time-slip novel, about a community of village children and their families who live, work and play by the banks of the Nile, the Pharaoh’s palace shimmering in the distance. Modern-day schoolboy Seth comes tumbling into their world, dragging himself out of the crocodile-infested river and coming face-to-face with a hyena.
A Never-Seen Pharaoh
So who is the, ahem, never-seen Pharaoh of the title, and why he is so significant?
That would be Akhenaten, father of Tutankhamun. As part of the topic, students inevitably learn about the many, many gods of Ancient Egypt, such as Anubis, Osiris, Horus and Ra. But during my research, I discovered something I didn’t know; during his reign, Akhenaten was a rebel and upsetter – the Henry VIII of his time, trying to change the course of history by changing the law. In Akhenaten’s case, that meant banning all mentions of gods, apart from the one ‘true’ god, Aten. (Spoiler: once Akhenaten died, all the gods were back, back, back, by popular demand!)
Inspiration From Teacher Twitter
A teacher from Twitter inspired a scene in the book.
I scrolled through a fun Twitter thread a couple of years ago, where teachers confessed to their biggest disasters from NQT days. One recalled dressing as a mummy and lying perfectly still during an assembly on Ancient Egypt. At one point he leapt up, assuming his ruse would be seen by all as completely hilarious. He didn’t bank on the trauma and tears from a sizable portion of his audience! The memory of that story popped into my mind when I was writing about class clown Seth. Thank you, anonymous teacher, for that brilliant nugget!
A Special Finishing Touch
Actually, there’s one more notable point about ‘The Boy Who Stole The Pharaoh’s Lunch’…
The book is part of the wide range available from multi award-winning publisher Barrington Stoke, whose whole ethos is to produce books that appeal to all readers, while being short and language-edited specifically for reluctant and struggling readers. In particular, Barrington Stoke texts – and the paper they’re printed on – are dyslexia-friendly. That said, their books have never featured a dyslexic child; till now! Who knew? Not me, till my editor pointed it out! My main character Seth is always up to mischief, but it’s only at the end of the book – returned to the present day – that Seth’s teacher begins to suspect that Seth has specific issues with his reading and writing. I feel very honoured indeed to have (accidentally) come up with the first dyslexic character for Barrington Stoke.
Nominated for the 2023 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing and the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration.
Original, inspiring and intimate, When Poems Fall From the Sky marries science and poetry to create a tender and thoughtful love-letter to Earth promising children a riot of imagination, humour and joy – the perfect book to celebrate National Poetry Day on 6th October.
The collection of poems, raps, rhymes, haiku and little plays is written by Zaro Weil, winner of the 2020 CLiPPA children’s poetry prize and is illustrated in full colour throughout by artist Junli Song.
When Poems Fall From the Sky is the first title to publish since the pair won the coveted CLiPPA prize with their stunning poetry anthology, Cherry Moon.
In exquisitely illustrated full-colour pages, trees, birds, animals, rivers, flowers, mountains and insects each share their own magical stories. And the stories they tell, the ‘poems’ that fall from the sky, subtly and powerfully illuminate our hope and collective role as guardians of our earth.
with Ben Miller, author of The Night We Got Stuck in a Story (available here)
Can you introduce the plot of The Night We Got Stuck in a Story?
It’s about Harrison and Lana and they go to stay with Nana and Grandad because it’s the Easter holidays, and at the bottom of Nana and Grandad’s garden is a magical hollow tree. They discover that if they climb up inside this hollow tree and out of the top they can go inside their bedtime story.
What was your favourite part to write?
I loved writing Yashar the bear which they meet in this magical fairytale world. He’s got a really interesting story but you’re not sure how friendly a bear he is to start with. He’s a little offhand with Lana but he ends up being her friend and ally. I like the character of the bear. He takes her to his cave and makes lots of magical potions in his cave and I think that would be a really fun place to go – into a bear’s cave!
What research did you do for the book?
Well, Lana and Harrison are my own children so I spend all my time with them and like writing adventures about them and for them. And Nana and Grandad are based on their real Nana and Grandad. There is a real hollow tree, not at Nana’s house, but near my house where I live in the countryside. I discovered it when I was walking my dog in lockdown. I couldn’t believe it! It’s an incredible hollow tree – I love hollow trees and think they’re very magical things – but this one was particularly special because it has a face; three holes which make two eyes and a mouth. I thought it would be amazing to write a story about that.
What or who inspires you to write?
I get a lot of inspiration from my children and the things they talk about. The stories I loved when I was growing up give me a lot of inspiration – I loved Enid Blyton’s adventure stories and Alan Garner, who used to write fantasy set in Cheshire where I grew up.
The countryside also gives me a lot of inspiration. My house is in the middle of a wood so it’s quite creepy. When I write in my little shed I’m completely surrounded by woods and I can hear animals moving in there. There are badgers, deer and a tawny owl. There are also kites – that’s where I got the idea for the kites in the story from – there are a pair who have nested in a tree in the woods. I feel like I’m right in the middle of lots of animals and it feels very inspiring and magical.
How would you describe your writing style?
I want to tell exciting stories. When a kid picks up the book I want them not to be able to put it down, I want them to be chasing to the end of the story and really desperate to know what happens next. I think first of all I like writing adventure. I love writing about magic. I like it when there’s a character who has magical powers or you can go into an magical world. Finally, I love the main character to be someone who almost feel you know, as if you’re almost in their shoes, and they’re someone you really want to spend time with. So when not-so-good things happen to them, you really want them to succeed.
What was your favourite book as a child?
Definitely Winnie the Pooh. I loved the fact they went on an adventure and I love that it was set in a wood and I loved the comedy. I loved the feeling that it was a magical special world, but very ordinary things seemed to happen in it. The more ordinary the things which happened the funnier it was. So when Pooh ate a bit too much honey and got stuck in rabbit hole, that just seemed incredibly funny!
What is the best question you’ve been asked by a fan?
I get asked so many brilliant questions by my readers. The most perceptive question someone asked me was: ‘So in the book The Boy Who Made the World Disappear, Harrison is 7 and Lana is 3 and then in The Day I Fell into a Fairytale and Lana is 7 and Harrison is 12, how is that possible?’ and I knew I’d done that and I did it for a specific reason because I thought the story would be best told by children of that age. I just hoped no one would notice! But I didn’t get away with it!
What do you enjoy about doing school events?
They’re the most fun you can have. I loved it at school when something out of the ordinary happened like a visitor coming to visit us. When I started out I was an actor so I really like performing in front of people, so school events are really great fun. I like the sense of chaos and anything can happen! I used to love that feeling when I was doing comedy. Comedy is a bit anarchic. In comedy you listen carefully to the audience, the audience make you funny, so you really pay attention to them and you follow them and you end up having a lot of fun. So I really enjoy the school events since it’s a bit like doing comedy and a bit like being a teacher, so you have a bit of responsibility but not too much. You can have a lot of fun because it feels slightly rebellious.
What is the best thing about being a children’s author?
There are so many brilliant things about being a children’s author. But the best thing is when a boy or a girl comes up to you after an event and says that they’re read one of my books and one of my books got them inside reading. Finding a love of reading is probably the most important thing that will ever happen to you as a young person. If you can find books that you love it’s so wonderful – to learn about the world and help your own writing and thinking. It’s the greatest gift you can give yourself. So if anyone says ‘your book got me into reading’ that’s all I need to hear to help me feel encouraged and make me want to write more stories.
The Night We Got Stuck in a Story is out in paperback on 11th May 2023
Historical Fiction – Engaging Children With History
History can be a tough sell for kids. Let’s face it, reading about battles and wars, politics and revolutions, can be pretty dry. But that’s where historical fiction comes in. By bringing the past to life through vivid characters and compelling stories, historical fiction immerses readers in the time period, making them care about the events and people that shaped our world.
Caring About the Past
As a writer of children’s historical fiction, I know first-hand the challenge of making history interesting and relevant to young readers. When I was a kid, I couldn’t have cared less about the suffragettes. All they did was march around in stuffy clothes, sew banners, and starve themselves. And one got hit by a horse, which just seemed kind of random. But as an adult, I discovered that the suffragettes and the world around them were far more complex and fascinating than I ever realised. For a start, Winston Churchill, our national hero, was the bad guy! As home secretary, he told the police to attack the protesters rather than arrest them. Not to worry, the suffragettes fought back using Jiu-Jitsu, and even landed some officers in the hospital! I knew I had to write about them in a way that would challenge my ten-year-old self. That’s how I came up with the idea for The Unstoppable Letty Pegg, a young girl whose mother is a suffragette and whose father is a police officer tasked with stopping the movement. Suddenly, the emotions and struggles (and Jiu Jitsu) are real.
Engaging Personally With History
Historical fiction provides a unique opportunity for children to engage with history on a deeper level. By putting themselves in the shoes of the characters, students are able to consider what they would do in the same situation. Find a turning point in a book, and get the kids to say what they would do, and why. Like when Billie Swift (Billie Swift Takes Flight) decides whether to go and help a pilot who crashed their Spitfire or to run home and stay out of trouble.
Or when Abigail has to decide whether to stay on the Island or run away to sea with her friend Boubacar, who is a slave, after her plantation-owner father is killed by pirates (Blackbeard’s Treasure). There are no wrong answers. Discussing their actions in the same situation makes them think not only about their own morals and empathy, but how the constraints of a different time would change them.
A Gateway to Further Learning
Both reading and writing historical fiction can be a gateway to further learning, inspiring students to research the time period or events in greater detail, leading to a deeper understanding and appreciation of history.
So many learning opportunities are opened up when children are forced to consider questions like:
‘Do they even speak the same language?’
‘How long would it take them to walk that distance?’
‘Where did they go to the bathroom?’
The Time Machine Next Door series offers up plenty of opportunities for creative classrooms. The time machine works by following objects’ timelines through history, so you could all pick the same object and travel to different points in time to see how things have changed. Or you could all choose multiple objects owned by different classes or nationalities of people at the same point in time and look at the differences between them.
The goal of historical fiction is not just to entertain, but to educate. By presenting history through the eyes of engaging characters and compelling stories, historical fiction can spark a lifelong interest in learning about the past. And for librarians and teachers, it’s a valuable tool for bringing history to life and engaging young readers in a way that textbooks and lectures never could.
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.
Check out our Review Panel’s top books for you to read in May 2023.
Our Year Group Recommended Reads lists contain 50 top book recommendations for each primary year group from Preschool to Year 6. The lists are some of the most visited pages on our website and are a popular choice for schools looking to purchase full packs of year group recommended reads from Peters. Individual books from the lists can also be purchased via Amazon or our Bookshop Store.
The booklists are curated with a huge amount of care and attention and schools know that they can trust us to only recommend the most classroom-suitable and top-quality, engaging books for each age group.
We’ve been incredibly busy in recent weeks compiling the new lists for you, which launched live on our website on Tuesday 25th April 2023.
Schools can share the lists or posters with their community and they also have the option to order the packs now from our partners at Peters.
But have you ever wondered about the process behind the scenes when we create our booklists?
Year Group Booklists: Behind the Scenes
How do the books end up on our booklists? Who chooses the books? How do the books get into classrooms? Here’s a sneak peek into the five steps involved in producing the lists, from selecting the books and stocking up on them, to unpacking the packs in schools.
1. Every Day’s a Happy Post Day
At BooksForTopics, we receive book submissions from a variety of children’s book publishers who hope to have their books featured on our website. We always look forward to receiving review copies from our publishing partners, and each day feels like a happy post day in our office (the jury is out on whether our postman agrees…).
We receive a tremendous amount of submissions to review during certain weeks, and from this selection, we carefully choose which books are deserving of a more thorough review.
Our Year Group booklists are never influenced by sponsored positions or paid-for book promotions. Instead, our team of experts selects the books purely based on their quality and suitability for classroom use. This means that out of the thousands of books out there, the titles that make it onto the 50 Recommended Reads lists deserve their place on merit, based on our assessment of the books as genuinely top quality ‘read for pleasure’ options for the relevant year groups.
2. Review Panel Process
After our initial assessments of the books’ suitability for our year group booklists, some of the books that we receive from our publishing partners for consideration on our website are then sent to our school-based panel of reviewers.
Our panel comprises of 50 reviewers from across the primary education community, including teachers, TAs, school librarians, headteachers, and education consultants. They help us test out new books in a variety of school settings before we recommend them on our website, ensuring that we only recommend the most suitable books for your classrooms.
Our panelists provide us with valuable feedback about which books are popular in their school libraries and classrooms. They also write detailed reviews for some of the books that we feature on our website. This information helps us to determine which books are the best fit for our booklists and to provide our readers with an accurate assessment of each book’s quality and suitability for classroom use.
We’re really proud of the work of our Review Panel and we know that their input turbo-charges our booklists to make them a step above the rest.
3. Booklist Curation – Created With Care and Expertise
This stage of the process is both fun and busy!
Along with the valuable feedback from our Review Panel, we collaborate closely with the booksellersat Peters to ensure that the books we select for our Year Group lists are readily available to be supplied to schools and classrooms in book packs.
Taking into account the insightful feedback from our partners and reviewers, we carefully and lovingly curate lists of 50 books for each year group. For the Year Group booklists, we are choosing books for reading for pleasure at various ages and stages (either independently or for shared reading with adults), rather than choosing books with strong topic links or for English study texts, which can be found on other places on our website like our Primary School Topic Booklists.
To create these Recommended Reading lists, we require a significant amount of space to lay out the vast array of books available to us. It’s like diving into an ocean of books, and we invest a great deal of time and effort in getting the balance of books just right. We aim for a balance across different genres and text types, recognizing that reading for pleasure means different things to different children. Some children gravitate towards non-fiction like the stunning fold-out The Street Beneath My Feet , while others prefer graphic novels like Mr Wolf’s Class or poetry collections like Zim Zam Zoom. Others still seek out books with tactile or novelty elements like Inside the Villains (a mega-hit with Year 2) or those that can make them laugh like the giggle-worthy Mr Gum. We also pay close attention to the values being promoted by the books in each collection, and this is another example of where our Review Panel system really helps us to dive into the details.
As well as the balance of text type, we’ve also aimed to collate lists that cater for different reading styles (including a lovely handful of Barrington Stokes dyslexia-friendly titles like Race to the Frozen North and Gamer), interest levels and publication dates (you’ll find some true golden oldies like Not Now Bernard and Tom’s Midnight Garden as well as brand new titles like My Life on Fire on each list), as well as books that reflect a diversity of characters and settings. Each list serves as a smorgasbord of tasty reading treats for children to try, as they find their identities as readers and dive deeper into the delicious world of reading for pleasure.
The 50 spaces on each list are hotly contested, and consequently, some of our most highly reviewed titles may not make it onto these lists. Instead, we assign them to other places on the website, like our topic booklists or other more specific reading-for-pleasure collections. The reason that we update the lists each year is to make space for newly published books and to make sure that we offer the best balance of titles available for each year group. The annual refresh also allows us to take into account the latest reading for pleasure trends as well as to remove out-of-print titles from our lists.
After curating our lists, we entrust them to the exceptional team at Peters. The team works tirelessly to stock and pack up the books, ensuring they are ready to be shipped to schools.
The Peters team has stocked up on thousands of copies of the books from our updated booklists, and they are currently busy putting together packs of 50 for school orders.
They handle all school book pack orders on our behalf, including managing school accounts and invoices, stocking new books, packing, shipping, and even creating posters and checklists.
Schools can easily order the books from Peters, and they will receive a fantastic 20% discount on the packs as well.
5. The Really Exciting Part – Schools Receive the Packs
This is our favourite part of all! We LOVE hearing from happy schools who use our recommended reads year group packs to boost reading for pleasure in their schools.
There’s nothing quite like the magic and excitement of new boxes of books to explore! Some schools conduct staff meetings and unbox the packs together to give teachers an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the books. Other schools assign the task of unpacking the books to enthusiastic students, while some schools load the books directly into libraries and classrooms and invite students to browse the new selections. We’ve also seen some amazing library displays to showcase the range of titles in each collection.
To make it easier for members of your school community to get an overview of the books in each year group list, you can print and share the posters and checklists. These resources are valuable tools that can help facilitate reading engagement among students. Schools are also welcome to share the links to the lists directly from their school websites.
Reds love being red. Yellows love being yellow. And Blues love being blue. The problem is that they just don’t like each other.
But one day, along comes a different colour who likes Reds, Yellows and Blues, and suddenly everything starts to change.
Maybe being different doesn’t mean you can’t be friends …
A very special picture book that supports the adage that there is more that unites us than divides us. Along Came a Different just goes to show how much better we can all be when we come together to find common ground as friends. Every bookshelf should have a copy.
When two kids visit Grandma’s house for their usual visit, they can’t help but think she’s stuffy and no fun at all. Even the dinner she makes is predictable. But when Grandma goes missing and wild animals start popping up around the house, they realise she has a secret…
A gorgeously illustrated picture book about not judging people based on appearances, and the how families can work together to help save the planet, author/illustrator Martin Stanev’s debut book will make a beautiful, and fun, addition to any child’s bookshelf.
Frank is ten. He likes cottage pie and football and cracking codes. Max is five. He eats only Quavers and some colours are too bright for him and if he has to wear a new T-shirt he melts down down down.
Sometimes Frank wishes Mum could still do huge paintings of stars and asteroids like she used to, but since Max was born she just doesn’t have time.
When tragedy hits Frank and Max’s lives like a comet, can Frank piece together a universe in which he and Max aren’t light years apart?
This jaw-dropping, heartbreaking and hopeful novel from Katya Balen will remind you we are all made of stardust. For fans of thought-provoking, moving middle grade from Wonder to Skellig.
For fans of Click and Brave, this touching coming-of-age middle grade graphic novel debut follows an autistic girl who finds friendship where she least expects it and learns to express her true self in a world where everyone defines her by her differences.
Twelve-year-old Mia is just trying to navigate a world that doesn’t understand her true autistic self. While she wishes she could stand up to her bullies, she’s always been able to express her feelings through singing and songwriting, even more so with her best friend, Charlie, who is nonbinary, putting together the best beats for her.
Together, they’ve taken the internet by storm; little do Mia’s classmates know that she’s the viral singer Elle-Q! But while the chance to perform live for a local talent show has Charlie excited, Mia isn’t so sure.
She’ll have to decide whether she’ll let her worries about what other people think get in the way of not only her friendship with Charlie, but also showing everyone, including the bullies, who she is and what she has to say.
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Forget the Pharaohs!
Historical Fiction – Engaging Children With History
The booklists are curated with a huge amount of care and attention and schools know that they can trust us to only recommend the most classroom-suitable and top-quality, engaging books for each age group.
This is our favourite part of all! We LOVE hearing from happy schools who use our recommended reads year group packs to boost reading for pleasure in their schools.
Where next?
