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Topic: Books of the Month - Mar 2021

Picturebook

An uplifting story on sustainability, in response to many ‘heavy’ green titles coming to the market that children often find intimidating. Omar, The Bees and Me encourages children to look after nature in local communities planting wild flowers to form bee corridors. Themes around cultural identity are also explored through Omar (a new boy from Syria) and Maisie’s friendship. Offers an insight into international beekeeping and illustrated by award-winning picture-book maker Katie Cottle, creator of The Green Giant and The Blue Giant. Includes bee facts on endpapers and a recipe for honey cake on end page.

Non-fiction

Looking Up is a celebration of telescopes around the world and speeding through space. These incredible structures gaze out into the solar system and beyond, helping us learn about distant stars and planets. Discover these amazing feats of engineering with cutaway illustrations, alongside detailed explanations of the science of light.

All over the world, people have built fantastic instruments for looking up into the sky. These telescopes are not just engineering marvels – they are monuments to curiosity and wonder. Discover the physics behind astronomy and stargazing, from the reason that telescopes are often built in deserts to how scientists can tell what planets are made of, even from million of light years away.

Picturebook

Hom is the last of his kind. I don’t know what kind of creature he is, and nobody knows he exists… apart from me. When a boy washes up on a desert island, he is sure he’s on his own in the world. But there’s someone else living there: Hom, a peace-loving creature who has lost his family, too. Alone on the island together, they learn from each other and become the best of friends. So when a rescue ship appears on the horizon, the boy has a big decision to make…

Chapter book

What if you could befriend a cloud? What weather would you choose? What if the weather matched itself to your mood, whether you wanted it to, or not?

11-year-old Stella has returned home to Shetland to spend the summer with her Grandpa, but it’s nothing like she remembers. Grandpa is lost in his grief for Gran, the island is bleak and Stella feels trapped, until she encounters an old woman, Tamar, who can spin rainbows and call hurricanes.

With the help of Nimbus, a feisty young storm cloud, Stella begins to learn the craft of weather weaving. But when her cloud brain-fogs Grandpa and The Haken (a sea witch) starts to close in, she realises that magic comes with big responsibilities. It will take all her heart and courage to face the coming storm…

THE WEATHER WEAVER is essentially a Moana tale for Shetland; a coming of age story, intertwined with island myths and hidden magic. At its heart, the novel tackles the following themes: independence, the meaning of home, and the fallibility of grown-ups.

Chapter book

The second book from the author of A Kind Of Spark, with Neurodivergent characters you’ll root for and a moving friendship at its heart.

When Cora’s brother drags her along to his boss’s house, she doesn’t expect to strike up a friendship with Adrien, son of the intimidating CEO of Pomegranate Technologies. As she becomes part of Adrien’s life, she is also drawn into the mysterious projects at Pomegranate.

At first, she’s intrigued by them – Pomegranate is using AI to recreate real people in hologram form. As she digs deeper, however, she uncovers darker secrets…

Cora knows she must unravel their plans, but can she fight to make her voice heard, whilst never losing sight of herself?

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Stone Girl Bone Girl

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