Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Reading For Pleasure: Give me 5

The Ghost of Gosswater

Chapter book

When Agnes is sent away from Gosswater Hall to live with the father she never knew, she embarks on a hunt for her true identity. This historical mystery is beautifully written and really did keep me guessing right until the end!

Tell Me a Dragon

Jackie Morris

Picturebook

With stunning pictures and lyrical words, this is a book to savour and read time after time. A proper feast for the eyes and an utter delight to share and read aloud. A story that will keep you dreaming of dragons for years to come.

Enchanting, beautiful, evocative, imaginative and poetic.

Books Featuring Family Secrets & Lies

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.”

Vampirates

Justin Somper

Chapter book

Justin’s own pirate themed series, Vampirates, was first published in 2005 and became instant international bestsellers. Now given a new drop of life by UCLan Publishing, with new content, artwork and a fresh sensitivity read, this white-knuckle series is brought to a new generation of young readers.

Vampirates starts with twins Grace and Connor who become separated at sea and are rescued by two very different ships. But where Connor finds himself in the hands of pirates eager to train a new recruit, Grace finds herself aboard a ship with a very unusual crew, who are waiting for the sun to set before deciding her fate…

Free and downloadable resources for schools are also available on the author’s website.

4.50 from Paddington

Agatha Christie

Chapter book

Yes, yes, Murder on the Orient Express is much more known and beloved. But although the train is famous, it spends most of the book stuck in a snowdrift, which I found very disappointing. This charming outing for Miss Marple starts when her friend sees a murder from one train while travelling in another. There’s very little blood or violence in this book, but all the excellent plotting you’d expect from Christie is here, twisting a railway murder into a classic country house mystery, with two boys on their school holiday helping hunt for clues. A good introduction to the queen of crime for a young reader.

The Polar Express

Chris Van Allsburg

Picturebook

A Christmas classic for every train-loving child, The Polar Express is a wonderfully gentle adventure to the North Pole that millions of readers return to again and again. Why? There’s an indescribable magic to trains that this book makes real. Its beautiful illustrations capture the pure joy of watching a steam train rumbling into the distance. Something chuffer nutters young and old can all appreciate.

Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman

Chapter book

A secret world beneath London’s streets, where the names of tube stations take on mythic significance – the Angel of Islington, the Earl of Earls Court, the treacherous Knight’s Bridge – the world of Neverwhere drips with imagination. After helping a wounded girl called Door, ordinary Richard Mayhew finds himself stranded in London Below, and forced to go on a quest deep into the city’s underbelly to get his life back. The everyday world of the rattling Underground trains becomes something truly magical here. I was obsessed with it as a young reader.

The Railway Children

E Nesbit

Chapter book

You can’t talk about great books with trains in them without mentioning this timeless classic. I loved E Nesbit’s adventures when I was little, and this one was no exception. Many of her books feature magical worlds, but here the railway provides the magic – becoming a portal for adventure for the three siblings whose family has fallen on hard times. It’s a beautifully built tale with lots of smaller stories shooting off like branch lines from the main plot. But they’re all woven together by the theme of simple kindness – and the importance of helping people less fortunate than ourselves.

Bloom – Nicola Skinner

Flavia Sorrentino & Nicola Skinner

Chapter book

Hilarious and truly original, here is a book with all the ingredients to take root and blossom wildly among the imaginations of young readers! We immediately loved the premise of the ‘surprising seeds’ that lead to an epidemic causing people to grow flowers out of their heads.

Sorrel Fallowfield is a rule follower. Never wishing to cause trouble for her overworked Mum or to break the strict rules of a perfection-demanding headteacher, Sorrel knows that she is in with an excellent chance of winning when school announces a competition to find the most perfectly-behaved student. Even better, the prize for the winner is a family holiday – which is exactly what Sorrel thinks her Mum needs the most.

Sorrel’s luck changes when a mysterious packet of seeds appears in her garden that have the most surprising effects. Before she knows it, the power of the seeds have taken root not just in Sorrel’s life but also in her whole community. Could nature be fighting back against a town that has eradicated all of its green spaces?

A stand-out story full of humour and heart.

Books For Reluctant Readers

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: