Originally published in 2001, but sadly still relevant, The Breadwinner is the story of a young girl called Parvana growing up in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Her mother and older sister never go outside, as even covered from head to toe in a restrictive burqa and whilst accompanied by her father, it is still risky. Parvana is lucky, as she gets to accompany her father to the market where he earns a living reading and writing letters. But she misses going to school and seeing her friends since the Taliban decreed that girls could no longer attend. She even misses doing homework!
However, one day everything changes when Parvana’s father is arrested and taken away by the Taliban. No one knows where he is, why he has been taken or if they will ever see him again. All of a sudden, Parvana becomes the family breadwinner. But it’s too dangerous for Parvana to go out and about dressed as a girl so, overnight, she becomes a visiting male cousin called Kaseem. Dressed as a boy she needs to find ways to earn enough money to feed the family and keep a roof over their heads. But even for boys, life isn’t easy. Can she earn enough money to feed her family and will she ever see her father again?
A beautifully written book about life in Afghanistan. Not always an easy read, but a worthwhile one, especially for KS3. The first book in a series about Parvana, I’m looking forward to reading the next one.
A classic story that captures the heart of readers. This is a must-read tale with much loved characters and storyline.
Peter Pan and the lost boys have fun adventures alongside Wendy and her brothers. Morals of friendship and resilience are shown throughout.
A touching intergenerational story of love and resilience. Tibble loves talking to Grandpa. But Grandpa has stopped listening. Mum says just give him time. But Tibble wants to talk to Grandpa now. . . So Tibble tries his favourite game -TOP THREES! And something amazing happens. Grandpa starts talking again . . . A moving story about love, loss, and the wonder of families.
Isadora Moon is special because she’s different. Her mum is a fairy and her dad is a vampire and she is a bit of both. Isadora loves the night, bats and her black tutu, but she also loves the sunshine, her magic wand and Pink Rabbit. She is proud to be different, but with parents like hers, everyday activities don’t always go to plan! When Isadora discovers a wishing well, the mischievous nymph who lives inside grants her the wish of constant happiness. But being happy all the time isn’t quite as enjoyable as Isadora expects. Can Isadora convince the nymph to undo the wish, and allow her to feel all of her feelings again? A funny and heartwarming story that gently explores how feelings aren’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and that experiencing all of your feelings is part of what makes you human (or half vampire half fairy!). Beautifully presented in hardback with silver sprayed edges, this is the perfect gift for Harriet Muncaster fans.
This spellbinding picturebook captures the power behind the simplest of all acts – a smile. When a baby smiles at her brother, the joy he feels is so powerful that it sets in motion a chain of kindness that spreads through the community and around the world. Journey through the illustrated pages and witness the magic behind each and every smile, seeing how far a smile can go and the impact it can have.
This beautiful picture book encourages children to reflect on their own smiles, who makes them smile and how they make others smile. It leaves children wondering ‘Where will your smile go?’.
This book’s attractive, full-page illustrations immerse readers in a magical and diverse world of happiness and possibility. It is incredibly hard not to smile when reading this book! This book is likely to help to bring back smiles for children whose smiles may have gone away. The book would work well as a whole class read but I also believe it could be used one-to-one with a child who may need a little support with their emotional well-being or assembly on how the smallest of actions can impact whole communities.
If you enjoy an epic quest and love an illustrated early chapter book, this book is for you!
With five loveable, happy heroes, a faun, unicorn, fairy, gnome and mushroom, there is a character for everyone. The book is a visual delight with detailed, colourful illustrations, which are scattered throughout the book, which also includes double page spreads of scenes. There are strong themes of friendship and working together on how to overcome the evil Fungellus before he takes over the Super Happy Magic Forest with his toxic spores. Humour is present throughout the illustrations, writing and speech bubbles, leading to lots of giggling together.
This book is fun to read aloud and is also good for readers starting to read chapter books. In addition to the text, there are speech bubbles from characters all throughout, which are popular with children to read aloud.
Suitable for a class read aloud from Early Years but especially suitable as a class read for KS1, where you can immerse yourself into adventure, silliness and lots of fun! It is part of a series of books, so be prepared to read other adventures by Matty Long. It has also recently been made into a new television series due to its popularity.
This is a cracker of a book! Packed with lots of humour and ad entire this is the perfect read for kids (and adults!) Jack is a young fairy who has just found out what he is. He is eager to prove himself to his mom and uncle and show that he can be just as good a fairy as they are. When he catches a Bigfoot stealing his favourite underpants, things don’t quite go as he planned. Of course, chaos ensues causing danger to the world of magical creatures. Jack has to learn important lessons about magic and friendship. The plot of the story is fantastic and original and really sparks the imagination of the reader. The illustrations help to reinforce the story and add enjoyment. The writing is clear and crisp, making this an ideal read that will engage even the most reluctant readers.
This story is about being real with our friends, honest with them so that they can be true to themselves; let’s be happy with how we are, and not have to conform because it suits other people. Setting the story in the Arctic gives it an exotic feel – everyone loves polar bears, puffins and snowy white foxes. And it allows the illustrator to display his skill at portraying the Northern Lights, which he does very well in characteristic cartoon style.
I can see Year 1 and 2s liking Patrick and their teachers reading it aloud when ‘doing’ related geography work, or when dealing with friendship issues. Equally, some children will enjoy reading it to themselves.
This book is about Snow – personified as the central character. She has been sitting on the top of a mountain for as long as she can remember. Snow starts to feel something very new – slushy and warm, she begins to melt! From there, we go on a joyful journey with her through the water cycle. Snow shares with us her journey and perspective as she goes on an adventure down a waterfall, along a river and out to sea.
This is a fascinating take on the water cycle, enabling children to develop a sense of how water everywhere is connected. There is plenty of pleasing vocabulary in this story which is written in rhyming verse. Words like flurry, slushy and warm, big splishy splash, bobbing and bubbling, hazy and hot demonstrate playfulness with words.
The book explores themes of pollution, environment and geography, exploring how waste can have an impact on our water system and beyond. The illustrations in this book are really powerful and emotive – it is sure to evoke children’s interest and curiosity and keep them coming back.
With this book, the author, Polly Owen, tackles a subject that is under-represented in children’s libraries and by the time they finish reading the book, the reader will know the answer to the book’s title! The idea that one can link the two ideas, shark and ice cream comes down to the art of using statistics and bad data to influence people.
Polly Owen skillfully tackles a range of basic statistical principles used in everyday life, such as data types, paradoxes and the 80/20 rule and makes them easy to understand. Readers of any age will learn much about these and other principles through the book’s straightforward descriptions and engaging layout. It looks back at significant moments in history where statistics have underpinned important discoveries such as infection control and code cracking.
The book also gives the reader handy information to use in everyday life, such as how to win a game of rock, paper and scissors using likelihood, or to be mindful of how the ‘six degrees of separation’ will make your image you share on-line reach two million people after twenty shares. Finally, children interested in mathematics or the use of logic may be interested in future career ideas such as epidemiology, marketing analyst and cyber-security in the ‘Job Focus’ boxes accompanying each section.
This is an appealing book that successfully introduces the world of statistics to a young reader and adults alike.
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?
yes
Curriculum links (if relevant)
Curriculum links (if relevant)
Any other comments
Any other comments
