Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Topic: All About Me

The Smallest Girl in the Class

Picturebook

An inspiring and empowering rhyming story that’s a joy to read aloud, all about the power of children to change the world.

Sally McBrass is the smallest girl in the youngest class – but Sally knows you don’t have to be big to be strong. From kites stuck up trees to howling dogs to stray cats in the car park, little Sally notices things that others don’t, and when she sees people being mean at school, she is brave enough to speak up.

The Smallest Girl in the Class by Justin Roberts and Christian Robinson is a moving and gorgeously illustrated story about bravery and changing the world for the better. The perfect book to build empathy and start discussions about kindness with young children.

I like Bees, I don’t like Honey!

Fiona Lumbers & Sam Bishop

Picturebook

A beautifully illustrated, funny and thought-provoking book for building confidence and encouraging children to express their feelings – about anything and everything. This book will help enable a much broader conversation about individuality, fear and hopes.

All author royalties are being donated to the NSPCC.

Hair-Raising Human Body Facts

Dave Smith & Paul Mason

Non-fiction

Hair-Raising Human Body Facts is a fascinating tour of the human body. As they read, children will learn a huge amount of intriguing facts about the body that they have inhabited since they were born. They will be desperate to share information – such as how your body sheds 50kg of skin by the time you are seventy and that the average human passes wind about twelve times a day!

Each colourful double-page spread focuses on one aspect of the body. The information is a mix of explanations, fact boxes, historical information and common myths about the body feature being discussed (Did you know that kissing a donkey was thought to be a cure for toothache in medieval Germany?).

Learners will enjoy the mixture of photographs, illustrations, speech bubbles and cartoons. The photographs also include images from a microscope, which are captivating.

Give Me Back My Bones!

Bob Kolar & Kim Norman

Picturebook

A pirate skeleton seeks to put its bones back together in this rhyming first book of anatomy!
A stormy night at sea has uncovered some long-buried secrets and surprises. Is that the mast of a shipwreck? A faded pirate hat? And what’s that hiding in the sand? A mandible and a clavicle, phalanges and femurs, a tibia and a fibula – could there be a complete set of bones scattered across the ocean floor? And who might they belong to?
A jaunty rhyme takes readers on an underwater scavenger hunt as a comical skeleton tries to put itself back together piece by piece. Make no bones about it – this rollicking read-aloud will have young ones learning anatomy without even realising.

Your Heart and Lungs (Science in Action)

Sally Hewitt

Non-fiction

An accessible information text perfectly pitched for KS1. This book answers questions about how the hearts and lungs work and what their function is in the human body. Complete with pictures, diagrams and suggestions for activities and investigations, this is a great book to support the human body science topic in KS1. You may also like the other books in the series: Your Bones, Your Brain and Your Digestive System.

Your Fantastic, Elastic Brain

JoAnn Deak & Sarah Ackerley

Non-fiction

Your Fantastic, Elastic Brain is a book all about understanding how our amazing brains work. A superb book for introducing the idea of growth mindset, this brightly illustrated text helps to explain how our brains grow and stretch when we face new experiences and learn from our mistakes.

The Name Jar

Yangsook Choi

Picturebook

This is an empathetic story that aims to encourage children to appreciate themselves and others and not to feel the need to hide their cultural heritage. The Name Jar tells the tale of Unhei, a young girl who is anxious when she moves from Korea to a new school in America. Too afraid to tell the class her name, Unhei decides that she will choose a new name for herself the following week. But on the day of her name choosing, Unhei is encouraged by the kindness of her new friends and she chooses to keep her own Korean name, Unhei, proudly teaching everybody how to everyone pronounce it properly.

Professor Astro Cat’s Human Body Odyssey

Ben Newman & Dominic Walliman

Non-fiction

The newest addition to the popular Professor Astro Cat series, this time taking a journey through the amazing human body. FIlled with bold, contemporary illustrations and scientific ideas are introduced in a very child-friendly way. This series is always a huge hit in the classroom.

You Choose

Nick Sharratt & Pippa Goodhart

Picturebook

Get pupils choosing, imagining and expressing their own preferences with this massively appealing picture book full of choices.

Each double-page spread is themed around a different choice to make and packed with all sorts of possibilities from the tame to the outright wacky; choose furniture for your ideal house, choose a pet (watch out for the dragon) and choose favourite food (the ice cream looks good but I’m not sure about the boar’s head!).

The You Choose series of books have seen enormous popularity and are well-loved by children because of the premise of letting the reader choose items from an appealing illustrated scene on each page. Readers are invited to select their favourite food, destination, clothing, hobby and family from a mix of plausible and not-so-plausible cartoon options, illustrated by the inimitable Nick Sharratt. These engaging books have mileage to be read over and over again, and children love interacting with them together with friends or family as they discuss their choices.

There is nothing that can quite take the place of this fantastically engaging series!

What’s Eating You?

Neal Layton & Nicola Davies

Non-fiction

All about the tiny creatures that live on or in human and animal bodies. Find out about the parasites that live in skin, hair, fur, feathers, blood, guts, livers, hearts and lungs. Filled with diagrams, cartoons and easy-to-read chunks of text, this information book is accessible and engaging.