The latest pet-themed picture book from Roald Dahl Funny Prize-winning author Peter Bently and the incredibly talented illustrator John Bond, creators of Dogs in Disguise.
A fun-filled look into the hilarious and heroic world of hamsters, as they battle their greatest enemies, the guinea-pigs!
From the award-winning author and illustrator duo behind Dogs in Disguise and Cats in Chaos, Peter Bently and John Bond now turn their attention to the smallest – but mightiest – of all pets – the hamster! Filled with unexpected animal antics, high-octane drama and endless humour, this overlooked little creature is taking centre stage as never before in the greatest pet showdown yet.
This jaunty rhyming text from hugely popular author Peter Bently, with brilliantly witty illustrations from John Bond, creator of the Mini Rabbit books, will have children laughing out loud!
A hilarious, huggable superhero adventure – with flaps to lift and die-cut shaped pages!
Rascally bank robbery? Runaway train? Never fear! Captain Cuddles is here! The world’s snuggliest superhero can turn baddies into goodies with just the power of . . . a HUG! But watch out, Captain! There’s a wicked flea on the loose! Will Captain Cuddle’s superhero squeeze be enough to save the day? Or will he be blasted off far, far away?
This cuddle-filled story with brilliant illustrations from Julio Antonio Blasco will delight children with its twists and turns. A fun superhero caper that would appeal to fans of Julia Donaldson’s Superworm, Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt’s Super Daisy and Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet’s Supertato series.
Lift the card flaps to discover all kinds of baby animals! This book encourages children to count the eggs from one to five, while lifting the sturdy flaps to discover some surprising little creatures that hatch from eggs.
Illustrated by the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-winning artist Jenny Løvlie in sumptuous, textured detail, with a read-aloud rhyming text from Katie Dale, this beautiful board book will delight young readers.
Scan the Stories Aloud QR code on the back cover the read along with the story!
Meet four magical friends who control the seasons in this irresistible new series from author-illustrator Jo Lindley.
Finally it’s Winter turn to share her special season, and she’s SO excited. But her friends don’t like her chilly games. Instead of passing the weather crown to Winter, Autumn gives it to Spring.
As Winter stomps off to play snow games on her own, it isn’t long before her friends start feeling bad. Can they find their way through the ice and snow to tell their friend how much she means to them?
Perfect for little readers learning about empathy and taking turns.
Each title centres on a different seasonal character and gently explores key social and emotional themes, such as anxiety, self-belief and resilience.
Set in an enchanting natural world that readers will love to return to again and again!
With a sparkling foil finish!
Collect the series and discover more magical seasonal adventures: Hello Spring Hello Autumn Hello Summer
Jane Hissey’s beloved Old Bear and Friends series returns with this refreshed teddy-bear classic, perfect for sharing with little ones!
Old Bear tells the classic tale of how a much-loved teddy bear is lost and finally found again. After Old Bear is packed away in a box in the attic, Bramwell Brown becomes determined to save his forgotten friend. And so, with the help of Little Bear, Duck, Rabbit and an assortment of other toys, he plans an ingenious rescue mission to save Old Bear from loneliness and bring him safely back home…
Nostalgia and heartfelt humour beam from each page in this brand new paperback edition of Jane Hissey’s beloved classic. Beautiful, photo-realistic artwork combines with funny, reassuring text, making this the perfect teddy bear tale to treasure for years to come.
A new year is a great time to help your school community to reflect on the theme of new beginnings. Some stories explore the idea of making resolutions or taking the next steps to overcome challenges. Other picturebooks are brilliant for opening conversations about how to make life better for those around you or transform old things with a new lease of life.
Whether it’s books to begin a new year, stories that explore fresh starts or tales of resolutions and new challenges, we’ve put together a list of picturebooks about new beginnings and starting afresh. These books are all featured on our New Beginnings Booklist and could be used in school assemblies, at home or as classroom stories.
Here are 5 books to share with your school community as they return for the start of a new year.
This is a wonderful picturebook about the desire for control and tidiness, and the wonders that can occur when we accept a little mess and freedom into our lives.
Ana builds a beautiful garden on the edge of her town but is determined to keep the disorderly wild out, so she builds a boundary wall to separate the two. She wants her garden to be perfect, full of only the sweetest-smelling flowers, leafiest trees and tastiest fruit and vegetables. Any seeds that are not absolutely perfect get thrown away into the wild. The plants begin to wilt and both people and animals stop bothering to visit.
Eventually, Ana sees some sunlight beaming from over her wall and decides to climb and see what is on the other side. As soon as she sees the beauty and unrestrained nature of the Wild, helped along by all her imperfect seeds, she decides that maybe it is time to start removing some bricks from her wall.
The gentle book from our Growing Plant booklistexplores the topic of new beginnings and can spark conversations about the wonderful things that might happen when you try a new approach to something that hasn’t been working as well as expected.
If you’ve ever made a New Year resolution to improve your fitness or spend more time outdoors, you might just relate to the journey of this hilarious spud. With everything he needs within arm’s reach of the sofa, this potato has it all – multiple TV screens, hundreds of video games and even a button that activates a snack-fetching gadget. He can’t see any reason at all to leave the couch… that is, until the electricity cuts out. The potato steps foot outside and embarks on a new-found appreciation of fresh air, exercise and the sounds and sights of the great outdoors. After some deep introspection, the potato sets himself a resolution to achieve a better balance between screen time and time spent enjoying the outdoor world.
This really funny book from our Healthy Humans KS1 booklist and is always a winner with children (we also love the other books in the series – check out The Smart Cookie, The Good Egg and The Cool Bean). As well as guaranteeing giggles, this story can provide an opportunity to reflect on healthy lifestyles and personal resolutions – perfect for the start of a new year.
This is a beautiful picturebook that celebrates new beginnings and the power of human connection. Tilly moves to a new home by the sea. She’s sad to learn that her precious dog Shadow is not allowed to go into her new school on her first day. Tilly faces the challenge of a new start all alone. At playtime, the teacher notices that Tilly seems lonely and suggests trying the Friendship Bench. A boy already occupies the bench and the pair form a bond as they work together to transform the old, broken bench into something beautiful.
This is a warm and gentle story that also features on our list of books to support emotional literacy. Most children can relate to the feeling of having nobody to play with or having to face a new challenge alone. The story gently encourages readers to seek human connection and reminds us all of the difference that reaching out and making friends can make. The story could be used to encourage children to reflect on how to make new or isolated members of the school community welcome. Could you work together this year to create spaces around the school where lonely children could go, where children can build connections through shared activity or where friendships can blossom?
This is a story of leaving the place you call home, facing your fears and embarking on new adventures. Anita loves the small, beautiful village in the Dominican Republic where she lives. She spends her days exploring the island, imagining herself as a valiant, brave princessa as she watches the ‘dragons’ (aeroplanes) fly overhead. One day, she finds that she must say goodbye to her beloved Abuela and her treasured island and travel with her family to a new home far away. As she walks into the unknown and to new adventures, she needs all the courage she can muster to come face to face with, and ride inside the dragon herself.
The descriptive language and use of metaphor in this story are stunning, as are the beautiful illustrations in muted pastel shades. Young children will really engage with Anita, her imagination and her love of home in this gentle story of courage and moving on, and older children might be thinking ahead to when they leave to face ‘the dragon’ that is High School!
Ask children to think about what new adventures might come their way this year and how they could approach new challenges with a positive mindset.
A moving, powerful story that shines a light on those that feel invisible in our world. Isabel and her loving family are forced to leave their home due to poverty. Feeling alone and invisible to the world, Isabel begins to notice the many other people living in similar circumstances – in fact, there are other ‘invisible’ people everywhere. Isabel is stirred to action and decides to make a difference to her new community in the little ways she can. By gradually improving small things that cost nothing, she starts a community movement and, before long, colour floods into her life and the lives of others once again.
This is a moving and hope-filled picturebook. More and more pupils will relate to the difficult financial situation that Isabel’s family faces and now more than ever is a time for communities to rally together. Ask pupils to challenge themselves to find ways to make small, positive differences in the communities in which they find themselves this year. Will they pick up a dropped pencil when they see it on the floor or just walk on by? Will they help a teacher carry a pile of books? Will they smile and say good morning to an elderly neighbour on the way to school? Or perhaps get involved in a litter pick or community tree-planting project?
This story links to wholeschool values of tolerance, kindness and caring and can be used for developing a sense of belonging and community. It shows how anyone can make a positive impact on those around them, regardless of how little they have. This beautiful book would make a super focus point for a start-of-year assembly or could be studied in detail in classrooms. A teachers’ resource pack is also available to download.
Jump into Book 3 of the thrilling new series about fairy-tale heroines, ninja moves and epic adventures, perfect for children aged 5+
When fairies start getting trapped and their magic constrained, the ninjas soon realise that a new villain is at work. Can they, with the help of their two and a half wishes, get to the bottom of the problem? Or will they just be a little bit short of that extra sparkle?
Packed with delightful books that have more than stood the test of time, this hand-picked collection of classic tales welcomes readers into whimsical worlds filled with humour and adventure, imagination and intrigue.
Our youngest readers will love joining the intrepid explorers in We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and laugh out loud at the timeless humour of Funnybones. Readers in Key Stage 1 will delight at the story of Dave and his favourite toy Dogger, and take comfort from the tale of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark.
It has been a whole year since we shared the new and improved version of our website – and what a year it has been!
This time last year, we relaunched the www.booksfortopics.com website. The relaunch project involved months and months of planning, designing, testing and improving the site – a real labour of love as there were already thousands of books on the old website listed on a variety of different booklist styles, as well as a host of other bookish content to consider. With the new website, we shared a fresher style, better-connected navigation and improved user experience for our valued visitors.
The new and improved website went down a treat with the BooksForTopics community, with over 2 million views since it relaunched.
Looking back on the year, there has been much to celebrate! Here are five highlights from the past year of the BooksForTopics website:
1. Our team has expanded!
It’s been a fantastic year behind the scenes at BooksForTopics. The team of people working on the site has expanded in number. We have a small but fantastic team of booklovers dedicated to improving the website for our visitors, with each team member bringing their own areas of expertise and experience to the table. This year, we’ve welcomed additional team members to the social media and digital marketing side of the operation.
Sharing the workload across the team enables us to process even more booklists, signpost the best new books for you, and keep in touch with our community via our social media channels and mailing list. The team has been involved in several book awards, panels and initiatives across the book community as well as enjoying book launches and industry events. Teamwork makes the dream work!
In addition, we expanded our Review Panel of teachers with new members to help us review even more new books and to assist us in selecting only the best books for our lists. Contact us if you’d like to join the waiting list to be considered for our Review Panel.
2. We’ve given site members personalised booklists
One of the things we loved about relaunching the site was the functionality for users to customise their website experience. Regular site users can save their favourite books and booklists in a unique member area.
We decided to hand over control of the booklist experience. Site members can also create their own booklists by adding custom categories to save and organise favourite books. By clicking ‘Add To Favourite’ on any book page, members can either select a pre-existing category (e.g. My Favourites), or create and organise their own categories by selecting ‘Add New Category’ (like ‘Science Picturebooks’ or ‘Class 2 Wishlist’).
Adding custom categories allows members to curate their own booklists relevant to personal interests and needs. You can sign up as a member here.
Hundreds of users have joined the site and made use of the extra features to collate personalised lists and save favourites. Site members can also vote in our Books of the Year Award, which is currently open for voting until the end of December.
3. We’ve championed independent bookshops
When we relaunched the site, we made the decision to add purchasing links to Bookshop.org from every booklist and individual book. Bookshop.org is an online bookstore with a mission to support independent bookshops.
We aim to provide quality purchasing choices to our website users, and it has been wonderful to see the upward trend in purchases from BookShop.org over the year. 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.
Exciting news came our way in November 2023, when we were shortlisted for the Indie Champions award for supporting independent bookshops through innovative use of the Bookshop.Org platform. The team at BooksForTopics was over the moon at the news of the awards. It is a pleasure to champion Bookshop.org on our booklists and to work together with the incredible host of independent booksellers up and down the country to spread the magic of reading.
4. We’ve added oodles of extra book details
One particular feature of the relaunched site has been a tremendous hit with teachers looking for added information about the books on our booklists. We know that our regular users love our themed booklists, but the new site has made it super-easy to find even more information about each book selected for our lists with the introduction of individual book information pages. Click on any book cover image from the booklists and you will be taken to a specific book information page – like this one.
This year, we’ve seen thousands of visitors to our book information pages. We’ve been working hard to add value by including review panel reviews, purchasing links, age suitability, linked booklists and printable classroom resources provided by our publishing partners wherever possible.
The book information pages are designed to inform book choices by providing extra details when users browse our lists. We’re thrilled by our community’s positive responses to these pages.
5. We’ve been helping schools to fund book packs
One of the initiatives we’re most proud of this year is the launch of our partnership with Support Your School to help schools fund book packs to boost reading for pleasure. Support Your School is a free fundraising platform for schools. Registered schools can raise money through donations from the local community to support their literacy and reading for pleasure mission.
Schools can already purchase full sets of our book packs via Peters – a popular choice to supply classroom libraries and book corners with age-appropriate selections of top-quality books to read for pleasure. We recognise that not all schools are in a position to purchase new books that will make a difference to children’s reading for pleasure, and we wanted to come up with a new way for schools to easily raise funds for our popular recommended reads book packs.
So this year, we partnered with Support Your School to help schools fundraise for full year group sets to support reading for pleasure in each year group. There is no cost to schools, and participating schools can spend 100% of the funds raised on books to boost children’s reading for pleasure. Schools simply sign up, share their page, reach the fundraising target and receive their book packs!
Although BooksForTopics in previous forms has been around since 2016, we’re taking a moment to enjoy the first birthday of the current website today and want to extend heartfelt thanks to our wonderful community of teachers, parents, TAs, librarians, and book lovers who use the site and help us to thrive and grow. Here’s to the next year of sharing the love of books and reading together!
If you’ve been enjoying the relaunched site this year, please share the link with your school community or drop us a message to let us know. We’d love to hear which features are most helpful and what you’d like to see more of. Be sure to sign up for our mailing list to receive our latest updates and news.
By award-winning Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho, the fifth book in the Luna Loves… series brings alive the art of gardening. Luna is wowed by her local community garden, there are squashes and runner beans, potatoes and tomatoes and even an apple tree. But each plant hides a story. Grandpa and Nana show her the Callaloo their family grew in Jamaica. It’s time for Luna to grab a trowel and sow seeds that will tell a new story for the whole community as they all discover their connection to the entire world. Other books in the Luna Loves… series: Luna Loves Library Day, Luna Loves Art, Luna Loves Dance, Luna Loves Christmas, Luna Loves Books board book.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Your Review
Stone Girl Bone Girl
review
Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:
Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:
Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?
Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?
Would you recommend the book for use in primary schools?
We aim to provide quality purchasing choices to our website users, and it has been wonderful to see the upward trend in purchases from BookShop.org over the year. Each of our 
Schools can already purchase
