Thanks to our partnership with Browns Books For Students we are able to offer all the books on this list at an exclusive price.
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
Key Stage 2A Carnegie Medal winner that is the perfect introduction into the comic, yet thought-provoking, Discworld created by the late lamented Sir Terry Pratchett.
You Are Awesome
Key Stage 2Table tennis champion Matthew Syed offers his very best advice on how all children can help themselves to become better at anything they put their hand to. Divided up into stories, visuals, charts and brief inspirational messages Matthew Syed is inspiring and uplifting as he address his readers. He stresses the importance of creating a confident mindset and argues that, armed with self-belief, anyone can achieve amazing things both mentally and physically. A book to browse and revisit again and again for the useful ways it exhorts and coaxes all readers to make the best of themselves.
Ghost Boys
Key Stage 2UKLA Longlist Book Awards - 2019 | A powerful short novel that will undoubtedly challenge readers to consider the reality of racism and the Black Lives Matter campaign.
A Whisper of Horses
Key Stage 2'A thrilling dystopian fantasy' Telegraph Serendipity loves horses. No-one in Lahn Dan has ever seen one, apparently they died out before the Gases - but there are statues of them around the city, paintings and drawings too if you know where to look. And there's the little lost wooden horse Mama gave Serendipity when she was little. When Mama dies, Seren is taken under the wing of Professor Nimbus, a storyteller. Nimbus is kind and knowledgable, but Seren has started to question the Minister's rule and life beyond the high, impenetrable Emm Twenty-Five wall. Hidden among Mama's few possessions was a map which suggests there is life outside of Lahn Dahn, and a place where horses live and roam freely - out beyond the wall and the Minister's grip. So, with the help of a trader boy called Tab and his little dog Mouse, Serendipity heads into the unknown, searching for the beautiful creatures she's always dreamed of. But the Minister is behind them, determined to hunt her down. . .
The 1,000-year-old Boy
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3Extraordinary and unsentimental answer to the question of what it would really be like to live forever.
Rebel Voices The Rise of Votes for Women
Key Stage 2Visually stunning, brief but inspiring vignettes of campaigners for women's rights around the world.
Charlie and Me 421 Miles From Home
Key Stage 2Heartwarming, funny and filled with pathos, readers will never forget this very real pair of brothers on their journey, and will be enlightened about the impact of disability upon other family members.
The Explorer
Key Stage 2Winner of The Costa Children's Book Award 2017 | After crashing hundreds of miles from civilisation in the Amazon rainforest, Fred, Con, Lila and Max are utterly alone and in grave danger. They have no food, no water and no chance of being rescued. But they are alive and they have hope. As they negotiatethe wild jungle they begin to find signs that something - someone - has been there before them. Could there possibly be a way out after all?
The Song from Somewhere Else
Key Stage 2Awarded the Amnesty CILIP Honour from the Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist 2018 | Shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2018 | A Julia Eccleshare Pick of the Month November 2017 | Longlisted for the UKLA 2018 Book Award | Award-winning A.F. Harrold blends reality and imagination in a moving and thought-provoking story about friendship, loneliness and being brave when things are difficult. Bullied at school and unsupported at home, Frank makes an unusual friendship with Nick, the weird boy in her class who everyone else shuns. After Nick rescues Frank from the bullies, she goes round to his house where she discovers something very unusual. What should Frank believe about what she sees? And should she keep Nick’s secret? Levi Penfold’s illustrations add to the illusory feel of this story that tests imagination and belief and leaves the reader wondering. J
The Land of Neverendings
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3One of Our Books of the Year 2017 | November 2017 Book of the Month | A Julia Eccleshare Pick of the Month October 2017 Award-winning Kate Saunders takes readers on a wondrous fantasy adventure in the best tradition of children’s stories in which there is another world to ours in which strange and silly things can and do happen. The story is tinged with sadness as the adventures stem from beautifully conveyed feelings of grief that it is often hard to express. Mourning the death of her much-loved sister, Emily finds herself having the most curious dreams in which soft toys came alive and do the most extraordinary things. When Ruth, a neighbour whose son died as a child, dreams the same things, the pair begin an adventure in which the worlds of reality and storytelling and make-believe seem to flow together effortlessly and the absurd becomes the everyday. For both Emily and Ruth, learning to laugh again at the happenings in the imaginary world of Smokeroon provides them with exactly the comfort and imaginary release they so badly need.
Sky Dancer
Key Stage 2UKLA Longlist Book Awards - 2019 | Sky Dancer is a vivid, inspiring animal story in which the British countryside is as important a character as its human protagonists. Joe has grown up on the moors, and knows no other world. But following the death of his father, nothing seems certain anymore. His sense of insecurity is reflected in the wider community, divided over the fate of the hen harriers that nest nearby. Gill Lewis explores ideas of trust and loss, and like the very best animal stories, this is a thrilling and moving read that will help young readers understand the natural world, and their responsibility to look after it.
The Rainmaker Danced
Key Stage 2A brand-new anthology of poems by winner of the Queens Medal and the Eleanor Farjeon Award, John Agard Do triangles ever get into a tangle when their sides meet their angles? In this brand new collection of poems, John Agard draws on themes from nature and science to identity and inclusion, to inspire every reader. Here, we become transported by words and form on a journey through past and present. We are invited to answer life's questions, while having a great deal of fun at the same time ...Answers are folly when questions are bliss? Without questions, do I exist?
Kick
Key Stage 3UKLA Longlist Book Awards - 2019 | Winner of the Branford Boase Award 2018 | Like lots of kids in this country, Budi lives for football, training with his friends whenever he can, following his team with a passion and dreaming about playing at the top level. But Budi lives in Jakarta and works ten hours a day making the football boots his sporting heroes wear, and earning just pennies for doing it. The descriptions of his working conditions will shock readers, but Budi’s acceptance of them as inevitable is almost more upsetting. Lively, funny, always optimistic, Budi will win readers’ hearts and his positivity ensures the book remains an accessible page-turner even as his life gets very bleak indeed. A vividly told story that has lots to say about the world, and the importance of hope and fate, represented here by Real Madrid.
Beyond the Bright Sea
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3 Key Stage 4A search for identity and possible fortune that allows us to discover that the real treasure is to find love and a secure home. Evocative and powerful storytelling at its bext.
Welcome to Nowhere
Key Stage 3In a nutshell: the lives of a Syrian family brought vividly and sympathetically to life for young readers | This is an excellent book for young people who want to know what is happening in Syria and why – serious, thoughtful, sympathetic to the ordinary people caught up in the war; in a highly readable story it gives a real insight into their lives, and how quickly they have changed from something very similar to our own, to something incomprehensible. Readers meet Laird’s fictional Syrian family at the beginning of the civil war when life is good, particularly for her central character Omar, a young boy already dreaming of running his own business. But as protests against the government spiral into war, the family are forced from their house, then their country. Omar stays upbeat, even in their refugee camp where hope is in very short supply, a lively, reassuring narrator. Unlike his older brother, he’s not interested in the protests, just wants things to be back the way they were; though the book ends with Omar, his mother and sisters escaping the refugee camp, we know that their lives have changed forever. ~ Andrea Reece Elizabeth Laird says, “We in the west, in the comfort of our homes, with our NHS, our free schools, our benefits and all our privileges, find it hard to grasp the fear and desperation of people who have lost everything, including their hope for the future. These people are people like us, with professions, lifestyles and families like ours. Unfortunately we are often encouraged by some of our politicians and our media to see them only as potential terrorists, as scroungers, as threats to our way of life. I wanted to show a family behind the statistics, parents and children caught up in a desperate civil war, coping in impossible circumstances in the best way they can. I wove into Welcome to Nowhere the accounts of many different people who told me about their own experiences, and urged me to write their story.” Belinda Rasmussen, Publisher, Macmillan Children’s Books says: “Elizabeth Laird has succeeded again in writing an incredibly powerful novel, this time about one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our age. We are extremely proud to be publishing this book to help foster understanding, empathy and support for those who have lost everything and can’t go home.”
Journey to the River Sea
Key Stage 2A special 15th anniversary edition of this award-winning classic adventure from Eva Ibbotson in which orphaned Maia travels from England to the Amazon with her governess.
Beetle Boy
Key Stage 2Winner of the Branford Boase Award 2017 | One of our Books of the Year 2016 | Shortlisted for the Children's category of the Books are My Bag Readers Awards 2016 | Longlisted for the UKLA 2017 Book Award and March 2016 Julia Eccleshare's Debut of the Month | A rollicking adventure spiced up with fascinating information about beetles, this debut novel fuses science, survival and sleuthing! Darkus’s life is turned upside down when his father goes missing. Darkus refuses to accept that his father is dead and he is determined to find out what happened for himself. Sent to stay with his uncle, he discovers the strange neighbours have a yard full of junk – and beetles. Darkus is befriended by a handsome, giant beetle who seems to understand Darkus and is also connected to his dad’s disappearance. What is going on? And who is Lucretia Cutter, one of the best villainess since Cruella de Vil?
Trickster
Key Stage 2With a naturalist's expertise the author has created a very believable animal civilisation to rival Watership Down in its depth and complexity, as well as page turning adventure.
There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3In Holes, best-selling author Louis Sachar showed his understanding and compassion for a group of boys who have got outside the system. In There’s a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, he shows the same sensitivity to Bradley Chalkers, one boy whose behaviour has increasingly alienated him from his teachers and his peers. Bradley seems unable to change but then Carla arrives. Carla believes in Bradley; gradually Bradley begins to believe in himself. Without preaching and with his familiar humour, Sachar tells a heartwarming story.
Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3Jonathan Stroud is a master storyteller who keeps you hanging on to every spine-tingling word. You’ll be hooked long before you turn the final page of The Screaming Staircase, the first in a chilling new series full of suspense, humour and truly terrifying ghosts. Your nights will never be the same again... Every evening the sound of the warning bell marks the beginning of curfew and people all over the city retreat to the safety of their homes. Security is of the utmost importance and salt, lavender and iron are now household staples. Adults are no longer sensitive enough to deal with the strange, malignant hauntings a part of everyday life. So it is down to the young to keep the city's residents safe. Meet the enigmatic Anthony Lockwood and his associates Lucy Carlyle and George Gubbins of A.J. Lockwood & Co. Investigators. A small agency, run without the interference of adults, they consider themselves to be the best. However, after a disastrous encounter with a deadly girl ghost, the agency is in danger of closing down. Will solving an old Missing Persons investigation and spending a terrifying night in the most haunted house in the country save them? Maybe, if of course, they are lucky enough to come away with their lives.
Liar and Spy
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2014 - One of our Books of the Year 2013 & Winner of the 2013 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize | Award-winning Rebecca Steed tells a wonderfully touching story with great sensitivity within an exciting and dramatic adventure. Georges (his unusual name is part of his problem) has just moved to a new apartment block and he immediately gets caught up in a game with Safer, a boy who lives on another floor. Safer’s spying game seems fun and his family, sister Candy and brother Pigeon provide an interesting and supportive alternative home for Georges while things in his own family are out of kilter. But then Georges begins to have his doubts… Gradually everything he has been protecting himself from spins out of control and the reader discovers the sad truth he has been hiding himself from. A very special story that is not to be missed.
The Weight of Water
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3Shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2013 | The Weight of Water is a startlingly original piece of fiction written in verse; most simply a brilliant coming of age story. First love, friendship and quiet courage combine in this spare and beautiful story that will leave you sad, happy and wanting more from this fantastic new voice in children's fiction. It tackles the alienation experienced by many young immigrants. Moving, unsentimental and utterly page-turning, we meet and share the experiences of a remarkable 12 year old girl who shows us how quiet courage prevails. A truly special and remarkable read that should not be missed and, Bloomsbury the publisher has done a wonderful job on the book itself - the best things come in small packages - and this is abslutely no exception, so buy the physical book and not the ebook.
The Unforgotten Coat
Key Stage 2Winner of 2012 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize | Based on a true story this is an unforgettable and moving account of one girl's vivid memories of two Mongolian brothers briefly at her school.
The Graveyard Book (illustrated by Chris Riddell)
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 311+. Winner of the Carnegie Medal in 2010, shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2010, winner of Best Novel at the Hugo Awards 2009 and of the prestigious Newbery Medal. | Spooks galore in this brilliant and fantastic story of life in the graveyard. When Baby Bod escapes a murderer intent on killing his whole family, he is taken in by the graveyard ghosts. In eight chapters, each of which depicts every other year of Bod’s life, a separate story of Bod’s life unfolds and always in the background there is the sinister, haunting presence of a killer. Bod’s curious tale is a masterpiece of original, absorbing and unstoppable storytelling.
There's A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom
Key Stage 3 Key Stage 4In Holes, best-selling author Louis Sachar showed his understanding and compassion for a group of boys who have got outside the system. In There’s a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, he shows the same sensitivity to Bradley Chalkers, one boy whose behaviour has increasingly alienated him from his teachers and his peers. Bradley seems unable to change but then Carla arrives. Carla believes in Bradley; gradually Bradley begins to believe in himself. Without preaching and with his familiar humour, Sachar tells a heartwarming story. Perfect for Reluctant Readers as well as keen readers. To view other titles we think are suitable for reluctant readers please click here.
The Other Side of Truth
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 3 Key Stage 4This is the story of 12 year-old Sade and her brother Femi who flee to Britain from Nigeria. Their father is a political journalist who refuses to stop criticising the military rulers in Nigeria. Their mother is killed and they are sent to London, with their father promising to follow.Abandoned at Victoria Station by the woman paid to bring them to England as her children, Sade and Femi find themselves alone in a new, often hostile, environment. Seen through the eyes of Sade, the novel explores what it means to be classified as 'illegal' and the difficulties which come with being a refugee.
