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.
Louise Johns-Shepherd - Editorial Expert
Louise is the Chief Executive of The Kids Network, a charity supporting children through mentoring to feel happy and confident about themselves and their futures.
Previously, she was the Chief Executive of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, where she worked for ten years to promote the importance of literacy and literature highlighting the importance of access and high quality reading provision to tackle disadvantage. She was part of the HMIP team who conducted the review of reading in prisons in 2022.
Louise has also been the headteacher of two London schools and worked in national education policy. Louise serves on the board of Brixton House Theatre, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, Oscars Book Prize and is a founding governor of Kings Cross Academy.
She continues to share her love of children’s literature by reviewing books for Books for Keeps and LoveReading4Kids.
A field guide companion to Giselle Clarkson's much loved The Observologist, this pocket sized edition is designed to fit neatly into a hand or a bag and be taken out into the world. It is beautifully produced, with cover flaps that fold out to give you a ruler and size guide, a small detail that captures the practical, hands-on spirit of the whole book.
Like its larger predecessor, Pocket Observology encourages children to slow down and look really closely at the world around them. Organised into clear sections on invertebrates, birds, plants and fungi, it combines identification with genuinely useful ... View Full Review
The second of Helen Rutter's interactive decision making stories, The Game Changers hands control to the reader, who chooses the pathway through the adventure and shapes how it all turns out. It is a clever, absorbing format that combines outdoor challenges, indoor mind games, mysteries and genuinely emotional decisions, so that no two journeys through the book need be quite the same.
At the heart of it is Tig Larson, who lives with his mum and isn't sure he has any friends. He finds it hard to know what to say or how to connect with people, so when his ... View Full Review
Reissued in Puffin's Classics series with striking new illustrations by Hoang Giang, this edition gives young readers the chance to meet Peter, Wendy, Tinker Bell and Captain Hook in Barrie's own words rather than through film and stage versions that they are likely to be more familiar with. The storytelling remains inventive and often very funny, with a playful narrator who talks directly to the reader with humour and child-like imagination, and the central themes of childhood, imagination, adventure and the reluctance to grow up still resonate strongly.
It is important to be clear, though, that this book was written 115 ... View Full Review
First published in 1906, The Railway Children is a story that many adults will know well, not least through the much-loved film adaptation. Now reissued as part of Puffin's Classics series with new illustrations by Chitra Erayanie, it is available for a new generation of young readers to discover the original text.
The book tells the story of three children, Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter, whose comfortable London life is abruptly upended when their father disappears under mysterious circumstances. The family moves to a small cottage in the Yorkshire countryside, where the railway and its comings and goings become central to their ... View Full Review
There can be very few children who don't already know the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. More than 125 years since it was first written, Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion feel as familiar as old friends, brought to life for generation after generation through the beloved classic film and, most recently, through the phenomenon of the Wicked films and musicals. But however well children think they know Oz, there is still much to discover in L. Frank Baum's original novel.
Now reissued as part of Puffin's Classics series, this new paperback edition comes ... View Full Review
First published in 1908 and an instant bestseller, Anne of Green Gables has sold over 50 million copies and inspired films, television dramas, cartoons, musicals and comics. Now reissued as part of the Puffin Classics series, this fresh paperback edition features charming black and white illustrations by Ayesha L. Rubio, making it a perfect introduction for a new generation of readers.
Set in late nineteenth century Canada on Prince Edward Island, the story follows Anne, a spirited young orphan who, after a childhood spent in strangers' homes and orphanages, is mistakenly sent to live with siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert at their ... View Full Review
Cathy Faulkner’s The Treasure Seekers is a verse novel set in a fictional northern village in the aftermath of the First World War, where communities are still coming to terms with loss and are then faced with the additional strain of the flu epidemic. The story follows Martha and Stanley, two children whose experiences of grief shape both their perspectives and their actions.
Martha is deeply affected by the death of her grandfather in a fire that destroyed his manor house, and she attributes much of her unhappiness, including her father’s depression, to that event. Her ... View Full Review
Bear Worries marks the welcome return of Bear, and is a companion book to Natalia Shaloshvili’s earlier picture book featuring this endearing character. This time, Bear has a very clear goal: he’s eaten the last cookie and needs to visit his favourite cookie shop. However, what should be a simple outing quickly becomes overwhelming as Bear’s imagination fills with worries about everything that might go wrong along the way.
From catching the bus to getting lost, or even arriving to find the cookies sold out, Bear’s anxious “what if?” thoughts ... View Full Review
In Always Angel, Kimberly Whittam once again captures the authentic, emotionally resonant voices of young people that marked her debut, Quiet Storm. This is a quietly powerful novel about belonging, trust and the long road back to believing in yourself.
Angel is a school refuser living in foster care after a series of traumatic events linked to her mother’s mental health. All she wants is to return home and be with her mum, but the reality of her situation feels overwhelming and unfair. Although her foster carers try hard to support her, Angel struggles to trust adults, interpreting ... View Full Review
Rebecca Stead’s The Experiment is a warm, carefully crafted sci-fi mystery that blends everyday childhood experiences with a sense of the extraordinary. The story follows Nathan, a seemingly ordinary boy who shares a small New York flat with his parents and his cat, and spends his free time reading Calvin and Hobbes or watching movies with his best friend, Victor. Yet beneath this familiar surface lies a truth he has been raised to protect: Nathan and his family aren’t from here. They aren’t even from this planet.
Stead grounds the science fiction in the ... View Full Review
Sarah Ann Juckes’s Robin is a tender, wintry story threaded through with magic, some sadness, and the quiet resilience of nature. It is a novel about finding one’s voice amid silence, and discovering that love, like the forest, is vast, tangled, and full of quiet magic.
The story follows Eddie, a boy who has always been “good”. He is always careful, considerate, and trying to be unnoticed because he wants to support his family through the illness of his sibling. Juckes captures with sensitivity the unspoken strain that illness can place on families: ... View Full Review
Kirsty Applebaum’s The Strange Disappearance of Imogen Good is a magical, mysterious story that feels like a classic fairy tale with a modern twist. It starts with Fran being dropped off at her aunt and uncle’s house when her mum suddenly has to go away. Fran isn’t happy about it—mainly because it means spending time with her cousin Imogen, who she really doesn’t get on with. But when she arrives, things take a very strange turn: Imogen isn’t there, and even stranger, nobody else seems to remember she ... View Full Review
The National Year of Reading starts here. Join thousands of families and schools supporting reading for pleasure across the UK.
