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Reading For Pleasure: Give me 5

Chapter book

The Lake District, 1899

The Earl is dead and cruel Cousin Clarence has inherited everything.

Twelve-year-old Lady Agatha Asquith is cast out of Gosswater Hall to live in a tiny, tumbledown cottage with a stranger who claims to be her father.

Aggie is determined to discover her real identity, but she is not alone on her quest for the truth.

On the last day of the year, when the clock strikes midnight, a mysterious girl of light creeps through the crack in time; she will not rest until the dark, terrible secrets of the past have been revealed …

Picturebook

In this enchanting book, Jackie Morris conjures a world where everyone has their own dragon, exploring all their variety through lyrical text and beautifully realised illustrations. This children’s classic is now available in this larger, high-quality production format for full enjoyment of the art work and the wonderful creatures it presents.

Five Books Featuring Family Secrets & Lies – by Ann-Marie Howell

Ann-Marie Howell, author of Mystery Of The Night Watchers, joins us this week to share some books featuring family secrets and lies. Ann-Marie’s book is a gripping new historical adventure set in East Anglia, and the story sees the unearthing of some family secrets dangerous enough to put lives at risk…

Ann-Marie told us, “I grew up loving books about mysteries and family secrets, which is I think why I enjoy writing them so much now. Here are my top five favourite reads packed full of secrets that will hopefully keep you guessing to the very end.”

Chapter book

Orphaned twins Connor and Grace Tempest take to the ocean in a desperate attempt to flee from a terrible life on shore. But a vicious storm wrecks their ship and leaves them fighting for their lives. For Connor his only salvation is a pirate ship… but this is no ordinary pirate ship.

Desperate to survive Connor must join the terrible crew of the Diablo. In his quest to find his lost twin sister he discovers mysteries and secrets deeper than the ocean he now sails.

Chapter book

Agatha Christie’s audacious mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.

For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around a woman’s throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away.

But who, apart from Miss Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there were no suspects, no other witnesses… and no corpse.

Picturebook

Discover The Polar Express, a true Christmas classic. “Magical” Guardian “Evocative and atmospheric” Sunday Times “A thrilling tale” Independent All aboard the Polar Express to the North Pole! Follow one boy’s journey to receive a very special gift from Santa himself: a bell that only true believers in Father Christmas can hear ring. Discover the beloved Christmas classic that inspired the blockbuster family favourite movie starring Tom Hanks.

Chapter book

Neverwhere is the stunningly original first novel from Neil Gaiman, the bestselling and prizewinning author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane and American Gods . Wired called it ‘the sort of book Terry Pratchett might produce if he spent a month locked in a cellar with Frank Kafka’. This is a must-read for all those who loved Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell or the magical world of J.K. Rowling.

Under the streets of London there’s a world most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre. There’s a girl named Door, an Angel called Islington, an Earl who holds Court on the carriage of a Tube train, a Beast in a labyrinth, and dangers and delights beyond imagining . . . And Richard, who only wants to go home, is to find a strange destiny waiting for him below the streets of his native city.

Chapter book

When Roberta, Peter and Phyllis’s father is taken away and they move to a tiny cottage in the countryside, the only advantage is the nearby railway. Join them on their adventures as they befriend all those who work with the trains, prevent a railway disaster and try to discover the truth behind their father’s disappearance.

The Railway Children, a much-loved children’s classic, was first published in 1906 and has never been out of print.

Chapter book

Sorrel Fallowfield is so good at being good that teachers come to her when they need help remembering the school rules – and there are LOTS.

Luckily, Sorrel doesn’t have any trouble following them, until the day she discovers a faded packet of Surprising Seeds buried under a tree in her backyard.

Now she’s hearing voices, seeing things, experiencing an almost unstoppable urge to plant the Seeds in some very unusual places and completely failing to win her school’s competition to find The Most Obedient Child of the School.

And all that’s before flowers start growing out of her head…

We are delighted to host a guest post from Kate at Beanstalk, a children’s literacy charity that recruits, trains and supports volunteers to provide one-to-one reading support to primary school children to improve their reading ability and confidence.

In this blog post, Kate discusses some of the strategies and resources that Beanstalk volunteers use and suggests five books that are great for engaging reluctant readers.

Below are a few of the other titles in the starter packs and why we chose them, with ideas for how they can be use with struggling and reluctant readers:

Beanstalk

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