Reading For Pleasure: Books We Love This Month

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.

This month, our panel of experienced teachers, librarians and children’s book experts has carefully selected five outstanding titles for you to read, with a mixture of fiction and fact, and longer and shorter reads to engage and excite young readers.

Dive into the new year with this fantastic selection of fact and fiction texts for children!

There are two picturebooks for fact-lovers this month. Caryl Hart and Harry Woodgate’s My Small World: Frozen uses vibrant illustrations and rhyming text to take readers on a journey through frozen landscapes populated by polar bears, reindeer, penguins and orcas, while Kate Winter’s The Cave Explorer is described by our reviewer as “a masterclass in how to successfully weave story and history together” and is perfect for adding depth to a Stone Age topic.

Fiction fans also have plenty to choose from in this month’s picks, from a stolen alpaca and an accidental robbery in Emma Green’s The Not-So Great Escape, to lost swimming trunks and country dancing in Phil Earle’s Finn’s Epic Fails, to shapeshifting and wish-granting in Rowan Foxwood’s Magpie Girl.

Read on to discover our Review Panel’s top new children’s books for you to read in January 2026.

Schools can also take advantage of our Books of the Month subscription service, enabling schools to receive regular bundles of our Books of the Month selections.

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.

This month, our panel of experienced teachers, librarians and children’s book experts has carefully selected five outstanding titles for you to read, with a mixture of fiction and fact, and longer and shorter reads to engage and excite young readers.

With Christmas on the horizon, there’s a really festive feel this month’s Book of the Month selections, with four of the picks having a Christmas theme, and the fifth focusing on a land of ice and snow!

Andy Shepherd’s A Christmas Delivery, a picturebook illustrated by Sarah Warburton, sees favourite characters from the Boy Who Grew Dragons series in a merry, magical Christmas adventure which will appeal to younger readers.

Ideally suited for lower KS2, Adam Baron’s The Very Last Christmas Present follows Father Christmas and his loyal pup on a magical adventure, while there’s a mince-pie-related murder-mystery in Alexandra Benedict’s The Merry Christmas Murders. Upper KS2 and early KS3 readers are in for a very different Christmas in Emma Read’s mysterious thriller Silent Night.

For non-fiction fans, All About Antarctica offers a journey south to the coldest place on the planet. Packed with facts and fabulous illustrations, this title invites young explorers to learn all about this endangered environment before it disappears forever.

Read on to discover our Review Panel’s top new children’s books for you to read in December 2025.

Schools can also take advantage of our Books of the Month subscription service, enabling schools to receive regular bundles of our Books of the Month selections.

Top New Non-Fiction Books For Children

A guide curated by the experts at BooksForTopics

National Non-Fiction November 2025 (NNFN) is here! This annual month-long celebration of children’s non-fiction books is the perfect time to stock up your classroom library with high-quality factual texts.

At BooksForTopics, we know reading for pleasure isn’t just about fiction. High-quality children’s non-fiction helps pupils better understand the world around them, supports the curriculum and genuinely feeds their love of learning across science, nature, history and biographies.

The Federation of Children’s Book Groups’ theme for NNFN 2025 is Past Puzzles and Timeless Treasures, which offers a brilliant starting point for exploration this month. You’ll notice in this collection some new non-fiction books exploring past puzzles – like There Was a Roman in Your Garden and The Secret Lives of Women Spies. We’ve also included some of the non-fiction choices that our review panel of experts, teachers and librarians have highlighted as the top choices from the past year – including Small, Shiny Dung Beetle and A Day in The Life of Fossils, Fire and Preshistoric Finds – both treasures in their own right.

To celebrate, we’ve pulled together a list of our nine favourite recently published non-fiction releases for UK primary schools. Whether you’re looking for a brilliant book to get a child hooked on a new topic, support a curriculum subject, or simply find a captivating read for a reluctant reader, these are the must-have new non-fiction titles to share with your primary class this Non-Fiction November. We’ve also produced a free, downloadable poster for you featuring this year’s Non-Fiction picks.

You can find more recommendations on our Top-Notch Non-Fiction booklist.

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.

This month, our panel of experienced teachers, librarians and children’s book experts has carefully selected five outstanding titles for you to read, with a mixture of fiction and fact, and longer and shorter reads to excite young readers.

With the evenings drawing in, those wishing to curl up with a longer read will love Krystal Sutherland and Martin Seneviratne’s intriguing tale of time-travelling twins, Time Lions and the Chrono-Loop, or Katya Balen’s powerful story of an unexpected friendship in Letters from the Upside.

Those seeking a shorter read will welcome the return of the Hotel Flamingo series with Frosty Fiesta, the story of the snowiest hotel in town! And Dave Pigeon is also back with Turkey Dinner!, another hilarious adventure for our favourite pigeon duo.

The Start Small, Think Big series has delivered some lovely non-fiction titles for younger readers, including Small, Speckled Egg, Little, Brown Nut and Tiny, Floating Coral. This month’s list features another brilliant book from this series: Small, Shiny Dung Beetle, which looks at this tiny creature’s essential role in tidying up!

Read on to discover our Review Panel’s top new children’s books for you to read in November 2025.

Schools can also take advantage of our Books of the Month subscription service, enabling schools to receive regular bundles of our Books of the Month selections.