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Topic: Books of the Month - Favourite Books of 2020

Counting Creatures

Picturebook

A stunning counting book full gorgeous baby animals, with amazing flaps to lift and holes to peep through. From Julia Donaldson, bestselling author of The Gruffalo , and Sharon King-Chai, who together created the award-winnning Animalphabet.

From a leopard with her cubs, to a frog and its tadpoles, young readers will delight in counting each creature’s babies and seeing where they live. With rhyming text and a surprise search-and-find game, this is a read-aloud delight and an absolute must for the family bookshelf. A truly beautiful gift.

Where the World Turns Wild

Chapter book

Animals, trees, flowers, our city forbids them all…

Juniper Greene lives in a walled city from which nature has been banished, following the outbreak of a deadly man-made disease many years earlier. While most people seem content to live in such a cage, she and her little brother Bear have always known about their resistance to the disease, and dream of escaping into the wild. To the one place humans have survived outside of cities. To where their mother is.

When scientists discover that the siblings provide the key to fighting the disease, the pair must flee for their lives. As they journey into the unknown, they soon learn that there’s cruelty in nature as well as beauty. Will they ever find the home they’re searching for?

A thrilling and thought-provoking ecological adventure from a fresh new voice in children’s fiction. Perfect for fans of THE EXPLORER, THE LAST WILD and THE ISLAND AT THE END OF EVERYTHING.

Life of Riley: Beginner’s Luck

Chapter book

Shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award

A hilarious middle-grade novel about one boy’s quest to get rid of a ridiculous amount of bad luck! After a traumatic run-in with the fortune teller from a visiting funfair – thanks to an unfortunately-timed sneeze – Riley finds himself CURSED.

Life as he knows it quickly becomes a catalogue of disasters – from wetting himself onstage during the school show, accidentally supergluing himself to his classmates and ruining the school football team’s sponsorship deal, to flooding his house and losing class 4’s pet rabbit – Riley knows the bad luck is out to get him.

Enter new kid: Brad Chicago. He’s super-cool, well-groomed and stylish, with an excellent stationery collection. And for some reason he wants to be Riley’s friend. Can Riley get rid of the curse before Brad discovers he’s a walking disaster?

Laugh-out-loud funny, warm-hearted and anarchic in a way that readers will love.

Brought to life with Aleksei Bitskoff’s lively, humorous illustrations.

Perfect for fans of Kid Normal, David Solomons’ My Brother is a Superhero and David Baddiel.

Award-winning author Simon James Green is best known for his funny books for teens. This is his first book for middle-grade readers.

My Shadow is Pink

Picturebook

My Shadow is Pink is a beautifully written rhyming story that touches on the subjects of gender identity, self acceptance, equality and diversity.

Inspired by the author’s own little boy, ‘Shadow’s’ main character likes princesses, fairies and things ‘not for boys’…he soon learns (through the support of his dad) that everyone has a shadow that they sometimes feel they need to hide. This is an important book for a new generation of children (and adults alike) which exemplifies the concepts of unconditional love, respect and positive parenting.

Cat Kid Comic Club

Graphic Novel

The perfect present for DOG MAN fans – starring some of your favourite characters from the series! Now in an epic paperback edition. Welcome to the Cat Kid Comic Club, where Li’l Petey (LP), Flippy, and Molly introduce twenty-one rambunctious, funny, and talented baby frogs to the art of comic making.

As the story unwinds with mishaps and hilarity, readers get to see the progress, mistakes, and improvements that come with practice and persistence.

Squid Kid and Katydid, Baby Frog Squad, Gorilla Cheese Sandwich, and Birds Flowers Tree: A Haiku Photo Comic are just some of the mini-comics that are included as stories-within-the-story, each done in a different style, utilizing humour and drama, prose and poetry, illustrated in different media including acrylics, pastels, coloured pencils, felt-tip markers, clay, hand-made cardboard sculptures, photographs, pipe cleaners, construction paper collages, and cookies.

Readers of all ages will be inspired to dream up their own stories and unleash their own creativity as they dive into this pioneering graphic novel adventure from Dav Pilkey and his heartfelt, humorous, and amazing cast of characters in the Cat Kid Comic Club.

A Story About Afiya

Chapter book

Some people have dresses for every occasion but Afiya needs only one. Her dress records the memories of her childhood, from roses in bloom to pigeons in flight, from tigers at the zoo to October leaves falling. A joyful celebration of a young girl’s childhood, written by the late Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning Jamaican poet James Berry.

The Lost Spells

Poetry

Beautiful books make unforgettable gifts. This pocket-sized treasure is the perfect gift for fans of nature, language and rich artwork, adult and child alike!

Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.

Each “spell” conjures an animal, bird, tree or flower — from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw — with which we share our lives and landscapes. Moving, joyful and funny, The Lost Spells above all celebrates a sense of wonder, bearing witness to nature’s power to amaze, console and bring joy.

Written to be read aloud, painted in brushstrokes that call to the forest, field, riverbank and also to the heart, The Lost Spells summons back what is often lost from sight and care, teaching the names of everyday species, and inspiring its readers to attention, love and care.

The Castle of Tangled Magic

Chapter book

The magical bestselling adventure book by acclaimed author Sophie Anderson.

Magic awaits, all you have to do is believe…

When thirteen-year-old Olia, steps through a magical doorway, she discovers another land. A land tangled by magic, where hope is lost, and a scheming wizard holds all the power.

Soon Olia learns that she is destined to save this land, but with time running out and her new friends and family in danger, she must search for the magic within herself – to save everything and everyone she loves.

The new fairy tale from Sophie Anderson, illustrated by Saara Soederlund.

An enchanting fairy-tale adventure about the power of love and courage, from the bestselling author of The House with Chicken Legs and The Girl who Speaks Bear.

Anisha Accidental Detective: School’s Cancelled!

Chapter book

“I’ve been working sooo hard with Milo and Govi to make our super-erupting volcano for the school science fair. I really thought we might win first prize – a trip to the National Space Centre. But now we’re in BIG trouble.

One minute we were in the lab practising our science demo, and the next thing we knew, our volcano exploded and flooded the corridors. School had to be cancelled!

But did we really get our project so wrong – or is someone else trying to win first prize? Looks like a case for Anisha, Accidental Detective!”

Shortlisted for a Blue Peter Book Award

October, October

Chapter book

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL Katya Balen’s October, October is a very special new addition to the shelf and deserves classic status – Times Children’s Book of the Week

A classic in the making for anyone who ever longed to be WILD.

October and her dad live in the woods. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They live in the woods and they are wild. And that’s the way it is.

Until the year October turns eleven. That’s the year October rescues a baby owl. It’s the year Dad falls out of the biggest tree in their woods. The year the woman who calls herself October’s mother comes back. The year everything changes.

Written in Katya Balen’s heart-stoppingly beautiful style, this book is a feast for the senses, filled with the woodsmoke smell of crisp autumn mornings and the sound of wellies squelching in river mud. And, as October fights to find the space to be wild in the whirling chaos of the world beyond the woods, it is also a feast for the soul.

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Stone Girl Bone Girl

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