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Topic: Seasonal Events

Best children’s books about Diwali 

The Hindu festival of lights is an engaging and colourful topic, which you can bring to life with this hand-picked selection of Diwali stories for children. This list of the best books about Diwali for primary school children features richly-illustrated picturebooks alongside fact-packed non-fiction and activity books.

If you are looking for story books about Diwali showing children enjoying the festivities, try Binny’s Diwali or The Best Diwali Ever, in which young Ariana makes plans to for extra special Diwali celebrations, with yummy sweets, divas around the house, pretty clothes, fireworks and a rangoli competition. We also recommend Christopher Corr’s excellent picturebook retelling of the story of Rama and Sita. For information books for children about Diwali, try Ladybird’s lift-the-flap First Festivals: Diwali or the photo-based information book Celebrate With Me: Diwali.

Add sparkle to your Diwali topic with our list of recommended children’s books about Diwali….

Best Children’s Books About Summer

As the weather warms up and the summer holidays beckon, why not celebrate this season of sunshine and adventures with some Summer-themed books for children?

From classic seaside tales like Lucy and Tom at the Seaside and The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch, to laugh out loud stories of animal adventures like You Can’t Take an Elephant on Holiday and The Great Hamster Getaway, our selection has something for everyone to enjoy. This Summer booklist is recommended for parents, teachers and librarians looking to inspire a love of reading and a thirst for adventure in young children.

Get ready to dip your toes in and explore the sights, sounds and smells of the summertime with our list of recommended children’s books about Summer.

Best children’s books about festivals and celebrations

Let’s celebrate! Featuring fun picturebooks and fascinating non-fiction texts, this collection of the best children’s books about festivals and celebrations offers a colourful and insightful global journey. Learn about festivals from a range of cultures and traditions and extend your children’s understanding of important religious celebrations with this list of books for Early Years and Key Stage One classrooms, designed to bring the topic of festivals and celebrations to life.

Best Children’s Books About Spring

As the mornings grow lighter and green shoots start to peep through, why not celebrate the changing of the seasons with some Spring-themed books for children? Spring is a season of new beginnings, growth and new life, and our booklist is full of stories that capture the wonder of this magical time of year.

From charming tales about animals waking up from hibernation, like Little Bear’s Spring and books about seasonal life cycles like Pip and Egg, to books about springtime weather and enjoying the natural joys of the new season like Hello Spring, our selection has something for everyone to enjoy. This Spring booklist is recommended for parents, teachers and librarians looking to inspire a love of reading and an appreciation for nature in young children.

From tadpoles and bunnies to daffodils and blossoms, our list of recommended children’s books about Spring will breathe new life into your Spring storytimes all season long.

Non-fiction

Young children can explore and discuss the season of spring with this beautiful non-fiction picture book. Very simple text, high frequency and decodeable words and strong art-to-text matching make this a perfect book for early readers. It also features questions to encourage readers to relate the information to their own experiences.

It is part of the series ‘I Love the Seasons’ which helps young children aged 4+ to discover the seasons. The books are great for seasonable topics and projects in the early years.

Picturebook

A fantastically fun springtime picture book from the creators of The Leaf Thief. Hello sunshine! Hello lovely leaves. Nice to see you back.

Squirrel is so excited. It’s spring and the most perfect flower has started to blossom – and Squirrel has decided the flower is HIS.

After what happened to the leaves in autumn (THEY ALL DISAPPEARED), Squirrel’s not taking any chances. . . He MUST keep the flower safe, and he needs his best friend Bird to help him!

But perhaps Squirrel wants to protect the flower a little too much. . . After all, even flowers want a little space sometimes.

Join Squirrel and Bird as they discover and explore the wonderful nature of spring . . . and learn a few things along the way.

A laugh-out-loud book about the changing seasons, with extra information in the back for especially curious minds.

Perfect as a companion reader to children learning about seasons in school.

A brilliant picture book that explores feelings, moods and times where we feel out of control.

Picturebook

In this uplifting picture book about spring, follow two children and their father through their backyard as they discover all the different ways nature wakes up from its long winter sleep.

Spot the busy creatures and plants as the tale unfolds, then learn about how each responds to the increasing daylight and warmth that usher in the season.

Co-authors Sean Taylor (picture book author) and Alex Morss (ecologist, journalist, and educator) offer an inviting introduction to the science behind spring. The yard is bright, birds are singing, the bees are buzzing and there are tadpoles in the pond! What is all the commotion about?

In each colourful scene, the family discovers a different sign of spring – a bird collecting twigs for its nest, a fox snuggling her cubs, a caterpillar feasting on leaves… After the story, annotated illustrations explain the spring behaviours of various plants and animals.

Inspire an appreciation for the natural world in this joyous exploration of spring.

Edited by Emily Pither.

Poetry

With lyrical text and enchanting illustrations, It Starts with a Bee takes you on a journey through the seasons as you follow a busy bee pollinate a wild garden.

Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn, the bee tends to the flowers and plants. As the seasons change and the garden blooms into a wildlife wonderland, the bee is joined by well-loved minibeasts and creatures – worms, beetles, spiders and mice – who make the wild garden their home.

A rhyming poem builds page on page, echoing the life the bee brings to the garden. Beautiful foldout illustrations will transport readers into the world of the bee as it navigates the flowers and plants of the garden.

Teach your children about the crucial role bees play in the beautiful cycle of life in this charming tale of the workings of the natural world.

Picturebook

The newest adventure in this bestselling series is an irresistibly chocolate-y caper starring Supertato and the Evil Pea!

It’s night-time in the supermarket and SOMEONE has stolen ALL the Easter eggs!

Never fear! Supertato and the veggies have a plan to get them back. It’s EGGciting, it’s EGGcellent, but will it also be…foiled?!

There’s only one way to find out!

Picturebook

At the end of winter, a girl named Spring awakes from her slumber in the snow.

She travels through the forest and finds a little bird that has fallen from a tree.

The bird is so cold and weak that Spring can hardly hear its heartbeat, so she turns it into a rabbit with thick, soft fur so it will be warm.

To show their gratitude, birds gather eggs which Rabbit collects in a beautiful basket. Spring tells Rabbit to give them to the children so that they will know Spring is here.

This beautiful tale shows young children how the Easter Bunny came to be.

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