Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Topic: Y5 50 Recommended Reads

Roller Girl

Graphic novel

An enjoyable sports-themed graphic novel recommended for Year 5 and Year 6.

This graphic novel oozes individuality. It’s the story of Astrid, a middle-grade girl on the cusp of adolescence and coping with all the problems that come pre-prescribed.

Roller Girl packs much in: friendship, mother/daughter relationships, being yourself and self-belief (also hair-dye), all under the backdrop of roller derby (to say it’s a sport not for the faint-hearted is an understatement)!

Varmints

Helen Ward

Picturebook

Varmints is an intriguing and mysterious picture book, with an environmental theme, and images that play with concepts of light and dark. This is not a story to enjoy in the traditional storytime sense, but an intriguing picturebook to offer reward to those willing to ponder over, consider and reflect upon the multi-layered offerings on each page. The ideal age of the audience for this book is Upper Key Stage 2 children.

A once peaceful place becomes darker when varmints turn up. They destroy the bees and plants and bring with them grey buildings and too much noise to think. Peace and tranquillity become lost – as does thinking – and the environment gets darker and more ominous with each page turn. Some of the images are stark and haunting – almost cinematic at times. In one tiny moment, a creature restores hope by nurturing a pocket of wildlife and a little bit of wilderness grows once again.

On Your Marks Gets Set Gold

Antoine Corbineau & Scott Allen

Non-fiction

An exciting, laugh-a-minute guide to every Olympic and Paralympic sport

From boxing to boccia, find out just what it takes to become an Olympic and Paralympic star in this hilariously informative guide to the games. For each sport you’ll discover why it’s great, why it’s not so great, what skills and equipment you’ll need to start practising and even how to sound like a pro! You’ll learn about some of the greatest Olympians in history, events that might appear in the future and there’s a helpful guide to your chances of becoming a champion.

With bold, energetic illustrations and a text packed with weird, wonderful and wildly hilarious facts written by former sports journalist Scott Allen, this gift book is the funniest guide you’ll find to the next Olympics!

Factopia

Andy Smith & Kate Hale

Non-fiction

A fun non-fiction book with a difference.

Choose your own path through this hilarious world of 400 facts, all of which are verified by Encyclopaedia Britannica. Every fact in the book is connected to the next in an ingenious trail of information – making it a kind of ‘choose your own adventure’ of the fact world.

From the attention-grabbing orange cover to the final record-breaking endings, this book is a winner. It has an index, it has sources, it has picture credits, it has information about the author, illustrator and designer, and it has a content page. But more, much more than these useful additions, it has facts, 400+ of them, presented so that readers can choose their own way through the book on the basis of what intrigues them most…

Loads of fun!