Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.
Andrea Reece - Editorial Expert
Children’s literature expert, editor and former children’s publisher
Andrea Reece has spent almost her entire working life in children’s books, first as publisher, latterly as consultant, project manager and critic.
She has reviewed for LoveReading4Kids since 2015, is editor of the leading children’s books review journal Books for Keeps and administrator of the Klaus Flugge Prize and Branford Boase Award.
She was children’s programme director of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival until 2023, spent three years as manager of National Poetry Day and works with CLPE on the CLiPPA (CLPE Children’s Poetry Prize) and with The Full English on the Poetry By Heart national competition. She has judged children’s prizes including the Costa Children’s Book Award and Alligator’s Mouth Award.
It’s a welcome reissue for Jennifer Killick’s typically hilarious adventure series which stars Alex Sparrow and his best friend Jessica, recipients of some unusual superpowers that they employ to protect their neighbours, in this case as animals seem to be revolting against humans.
The rise of ‘animalomalies,’ in which animals such as squirrels, foxes, pigeons behave in unusual ways e.g. stealing and destroying people’s phones, is a symptom of something wider going on. To Alex’s delight, it’s a new mission, one that brings them into contact again ... View Full Review
Join pirate detectives Buck and Ears as they solve a particularly tricky mystery in this comic, inventive, thoroughly enjoyable adventure.
The crew of the Agathy Fishty II (named after first mate Ears’ favourite mystery writer) are on the look out for a new case to solve when they literally bump into one: in a rowing boat, is an enormous alligator in a tailored purple suit, frozen stiff. Could the alligator have encountered the legendary Flying Phantom ghost ship? And if so, why?
Buck and Ears’ investigations lead them to Crabula City’s theatre and eventually to Mr ... View Full Review
With beautiful black and white illustrations by award-winning illustrator Olivia Lomench Gill, Abi Elphinstone’s new Mongolia-set animal adventure story adds magic to the mix with spine-tingling results.
Emmy is on the trip of a lifetime with her parents, but she can’t relax. Recent experiences have turned her into a pessimist but everything that is about to happen will change that. Caught in a blizzard she stumbles into a cave for shelter and discovers a snow leopard cub. The two form an immediate and very special bond, and the magic flows from there.
Searching for the cub&... View Full Review
The latest in Dan Smith’s super-scary series The Night House Files, The Ghosts of Grey Towers takes readers bold enough into a school built on cursed ground, and allows us to experience the worst its malevolent ghosts can unleash through the eyes of one teenage boy.
There’s something strange about Damian Cooper. He just needs to touch someone to know all their darkest secrets. Unable to cope, his parents send him to Grey Towers Boarding School, a place with a terrible history. Something there is determined to destroy Damian, and the tools it chooses are his ... View Full Review
This joyful, fun-filled picture book reminds us all how good and important it is to let our feelings out.
The Hushlings of Hushville are always polite. They never raise their voices, and they keep their feelings under control at all times. All except little Hushling Maeve. She longs to be noisy, to shout, run about and express her own Big Feelings. So when a huge blue egg appears, and an even larger, very noisy bird emerges, only Maeve is excited and ready to make friends.
As the bird settles into Hushville, it all gets too much for the residents and &... View Full Review
At a time when it is more important than ever that young people can differentiate between true stories and fake news, this entertaining little book presents a range of real and ‘rubbish’ stories, concluding with pages of advice on ways to check the truth of what you’re told.
In chapters covering sport, art, science, the environment and even ‘outrageous outlaws,’ the book presents a series of extraordinary facts, the challenge to readers being, can you spot the fakes? The answers are given on each page and most of the facts are true, e.g. ... View Full Review
Dotty Sutton’s debut is an original mix of the gruesome and the comic, her own own black and white illustrations bring life to her wonderfully outlandish characters and scenes.
The hero is half-vampire Moth, centuries old but still aged ten and now helping his vampire aunt run his old house as a hotel. Bitten by a decidedly un-cool rockstar vampire with only one fang, Moth has the gift of immortality but not flight. He didn’t get the super strength either though he did duck the allergy to sunlight. He’s also a strict vegetarian.
His ... View Full Review
Benjamin Zephaniah’s poetry has been exciting and inspiring children and young people for many years and it’s great to see this new anthology which collects so many of his poems together after his untimely death in 2023.
Gathered in this illustrated book are the poems that first appeared in his collections Talking Turkeys, Funky Chickens and Wicked World. Undoubtedly most young people will turn immediately to the poem Talking Turkeys, a huge favourite in schools. Typically, it is both funny and serious and makes some thought-provoking points about the way we celebrate Christmas, but it also ... View Full Review
Here’s another inimitable collection of Bunny vs Monkey cartoon strip adventures, exhibiting all the wit, invention and unparalleled silliness, not to mention superb artwork, that have won them so many dedicated fans.
It’s virtually impossible to sum up a Bunny vs Monkey book, and in these linked adventures, among other things, you’ll find sentient underpants, a zombie invasion and Pig & Weenie Fun Police! There are stories called ZombieBooBoo, AI Saviour of the World and Shiny Pebbles (NB they’re radioactive). There would seem to be no limits to Jamie Smart’s ... View Full Review
This delightfully eerie picture book story of a walk in the dark raises the tension as high as it can go before releasing it with laughter and clever reassurance.
A silver moon hangs in the sky and a ghostly chill is settling on the town as a girl and her black cat head out with a pumpkin lantern. The spooky sense that something else is out and following mounts as the pages turn, Jack-o-lanterns flickering and shadows growing. Even the other ghosts out trick or treating seem to feel it until eventually the rustling in the hedge gets too much ... View Full Review
Comic strip fans who like to combine fact finding with laughter will rate the Corpse Talk series very highly. In the form of a series of chat show interviews with famous people from history – now corpses of course and exhumed from their graves specially – it provides the lowdown on the lives and achievements of a set of fascinating figures, from Aristotle to Charles Darwin to Cleopatra and Marie Antoninette to Marco Polo to Toussant Louverture.
As you’d expect from a book called Corpse Talk, stones are turned and dirt is dug, and there are some deliciously ... View Full Review
Rewild takes a poem by Benjamin Zephaniah and makes it into an inspiring and beautiful picture book with illustrations by critically acclaimed artist Emily Sutton capturing all the richness and hopefulness of his words.
Its subject is nothing less than human life on Earth and its impact, from the days of the hunter gatherers, ‘when this great planet had no name,’ to the development of agriculture and settlements, through the age of enlightenment, the industrial revolution up until today. Over scenes of the damage caused by pollution and of nature being revived, and in verse that quietly rhymes ... View Full Review
