Category: Children’s
-
Matt Haig – A Boy Called Christmas
An audio-book narrated by Stephen Fry? Glorious! Matt Haig takes on this story of a young boy called Nikolas who finds himself on a wild adventure with his mouse friend Mika for a companion, and ends up blossoming into someone quite familiar. We start the book as Nikolas’ father leaves him to go on a…
-
Elle McNicoll – A Kind of Spark
I picked up this book after seeing it advertised on social media by Waterstones and I didn’t really know what to expect, apart from the fact that the cover really stood out to me. I’m so glad I took a chance. In the book we meet Addie, an 11 year old girl from a small…
-
Tony Evans – A Kid’s Guide to the Names of Jesus
I requested this book as an advance reading copy from NetGalley as I thought it might be useful for my youth groups. Although the book is pitched at a lower age range than I usually teach, I thought it would have some material that would be helpful. And I think I was mostly right. I…
-
Margery Williams – The Velveteen Rabbit
Before I read this book, I felt like I was very familiar with the story. I never read it as a child, but since using the Calm meditation app, this has become my favourite sleep story read by Anna Acton. It turns out, however, that the sleep story is so good at its job that…
-
Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom
I think I read this book a few times in primary school, but I didn’t have many memories of it apart from finding it quite emotional, so I thought I’d try it again, given it’s part of my 100 book reading challenge poster that my sister bought me. Despite it being more than 20 years…
-
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Illustrated Edition)
I’ve read Harry Potter so many times that more reviews kind of seem pointless now. Each re-read brings me a new bit of joy, combined with a hefty amount of nostalgia. But this is the first time that I’ve ever read the illustrated editions and wow they’re beautiful. My colleagues bought me the first two…
-
Neil Patrick Harris – The Magic Misfits #1
This was the last of the audio books that I listened to while decorating the spare room – a random choice from the library app on my phone. I love Neil Patrick Harris and I was so glad that he narrated this book himself. Obviously you can probably tell that this is a kids book,…
-
Frank Cottrell-Boyce – The Unforgotten Coat
The final audiobook I listened to while decorating my spare room (yes…it took a long time). I think this book like the previous one may have been better to read rather than listen to as it seems like I missed out on extras like photographs again, but even so, it was a fabulous book. Julie…
-
Henry Louis Gates Jr – Dark Sky Rising
I picked up this book as something to listen to when I was decorating the spare room, and while this wasn’t an easy listen, I definitely learnt a lot. We never really learned about American history at school, so although this book was aimed at a younger age range, it was the perfect level for…
-
Ewa Jozefkowicz – Girl 38
At the start of this book, we’re introduced to Kat, a young girl who loves nothing more than to draw her comic books. Her parents work long hours and she’s often alone, and she’s feeling out of touch with her childhood best friend Gem, who is becoming more and more like a tyrant than a…
-
Ele Fountain – Boy 87
Oh. Em. Gee. This book was filed in the children’s book section of my library app, so I didn’t quite expect what was coming. Not an easy read, for sure, but definitely one that was worth reading. I started this when I got into bed at 10.30pm on boxing day and basically stayed awake til…
-
Onjali Q. Rauf – The Boy at the Back of the Class
A warm, engaging and inspiring look at an all too relevant topic, I would recommend this book to everyone, but particularly as a very engaging and relatable way to introduce the topic of the refugee crisis to young children. I first heard of this book when it started winning awards, namely the Waterstones Children’s Book…
-
Enid Blyton – The Boy with the Loaves and Fishes
I picked up this book on a trip to one of my favourite places – Barter Books in Alnwick. If you’ve never been there – go. Seriously, it’s the best book shop. I love it for finding old books like this that you would never find anywhere else – this book only has 1 review on…
-
Gemma Willis & Emma Randall – Diary of a Disciple: Luke’s Story
I bought this book thinking I was just reading it to check if it would be okay for our Sunday School/Youth Group kids, but actually I ended up loving it for myself too! This beautifully designed hardback book is a re-telling of Luke’s Gospel, aimed at children and perfect for them to read either by…
-
Roald Dahl – Matilda
One of my ‘Book Bingo’ challenges this year is to re-read a childhood favourite, and how could it be anything other than Matilda? I read this book so many times as a child that my copy is falling to pieces (as you can probably tell from the picture), and I’ve watched the film more times…
Louise Douglas 