Troll Stinks makes for an excellent choice of book for today’s children and one with the potential to both entertain and spark meaningful discussions with primary children.

Billy the Goat and his friend Cyril are playing with a phone when they decide to send mean messages to the troll living under the bridge. Soon, the two friends discover that their online actions have had a significant impact on the troll’s feelings and that their messages were not such a fun idea after all.

The book is part of a series that spins traditional tales into the modern age and examines the impact of technology on children’s safety.

With more primary-aged children than ever having access to online messaging, the book is bound to open impactful classroom discussions. Even for children who do yet use their devices in this way, the broader themes of bullying, empathy, recognising the impact of words and stopping mean behaviour in its tracks will resonate with even the youngest children.

This important and entertaining story is a modern must-read.

Written by a teacher, PENGUINPIG is designed to teach the concept of e-safety to young children and is a great choice of book for EYFS and KS1. The story features a little girl who becomes intrigued by a penguinpig that she encounters online. When she takes the decision to go out and meet the penguinpig for herself, she finds that things are not always as they seem on the internet and that from now on she must think before she clicks. You may also like MONKEYCOW from the same team, which focuses on keeping passwords safe.

Designed to appeal to children with a love of gaming, Ant Clancy: Games Detective is a fast-paced adventure story that could be enjoyed by any reader who likes an action-packed mystery story. Ant is the only person in Westford Abbey who can’t get into playing Ray-Chay, the new virtual reality game that everyone else is obsessed with. Soon something goes very wrong with the game, which somehow spills over into real life, and Ant is the person who will get to the bottom of what’s happening and try to put things right. As the story unfolds, the line between the gaming world and reality is blurred even further in the race to uncover the truth.

Lily loves animals and has a stammer.

Themes of family and friendship are explored throughout the story, which is told from Lily’s point of view. Lily is in Year 6 and her new teacher sets a project about ‘One World’, where the children work together to research an issue and present it to the class – a task that feels challenging for Lily when she has a stammer. This thought-provoking and beautiful story reels the reader in to Lily’s journey from being the victim of cyberbullying to standing up for herself and ‘becoming more hedgehog.’

From friendship changes, cyberbullying and new family additions, this unique story leads to lots of discussion for KS2 classes. The story is inter-woven with animal facts and at the beginning of each chapter is a fact about hedgehogs, as well as an illustration. This book is captivating from the first page and is a must-read for celebrating differences, overcoming adversity, and having hope and courage.

I really enjoyed this story and read it in one day, as I couldn’t put it down. It would make a good class read for children in Year 5 or 6 or for children who love animals and celebrating who we are.