An amazing little book for children and adults!

I can imagine it would be if particular use to any children who have a Deaf child in there class, or know a Deaf child.

It does an amazing job at both educating children on the Deaf community, celebrating their achievements, and also helping children to learn acceptance and inclusivity with Deaf children they may encounter.

The illustrations and Narrator are also a great addition that make the book incredibly child friendly and easy to understand.

An interesting, empowering and oddly specific read.

This picture book tells the story of Katie Casey, a fictional character from a classic American song, and the fight for women to play professional baseball in America during the time of WWI.

The story is rhythmic and engaging, with baseball songs at the beginning and end, and a great moral message that is well written and well explained: female empowerment at a perfectly age appropriate level of understanding.

I studied Frankenstein in year 9, and I vividly remember it. At the time I loved creative writing, but I had yet to really become enamoured with reading, writing, and English as a lesson. Mr Owens who taught us this book was new and had high standards. It was one of the first ‘adult’ books I’d ever had to read and analyse, and I loved every second of it. For that reason Mary Shelley and her book has a special place in my heart.

This book did a wonderful job at sharing that love of a classical and groundbreaking ‘adult’ book, in an age appropriate, inspiring and engaging way for children.

Although I felt that the writing was a little jagged and confusing, I enjoyed the way Mary Shelley’s childhood was presented and her achievement praised in a way to let children, and especially little girls, know that they can do anything they dream if they work towards it.

This would be a great book to use in the classroom when considering Creative writing (sci-fi and horror), history or poetry. There are so many modern variations of Frankenstein that I’m sure it could also be easily adapted to other less obvious areas of the curriculum too.

A clear and beautifully written story about the bravery and strong will of Harriet Tubman.

Her life story is written easily for young children to understand. The historical learning is matter of fact over what could be difficult subjects to teach, and the writing focuses most of all on her achievements and morals to inspire children.

I was hesitant to put this book under Non-Fiction, simply because the pictures are so absorbing and emotive that it could easily be considered a picture book.

However, I placed it here because it handles the topic of children’s mindfulness, and ways they can ground themselves using their senses, or become more aware of the world around them.
The book is very simple, maybe even too simple for any kind of fully rounded understanding of the idea of mindfulness. However, for a teacher, this book would be the perfect tool to begin a discussion about how we can be more mindful in school or at home. With plenty of very simple and easy exercises to do as a class. It would be a wonderful short break, beginning or end of the day relaxation, and hopefully begin a great conversation around well-being.

A very sweetly illustrated and simply written retelling of the story of Anne Frank’s life and how her Diary came to be.

It handles her historical context well, with subtlety, and purposefully leads the reader to questions which will help them learn about the Holocaust and World War II in general.

A wonderful little book about the life and job of bees, their roles in the hive, and why it would be a disaster to lose them.

The book even gives ways we can help to look after them an encourage them back into our gardens.

A wonderfully illustrated and detailed book to introduce children who have a foundation of science understanding to Darwin’s Origin of Species!

The use of illustrations, beautiful laid out diagrams, quotes, appendix, glossary and misconceptions all help to clarify and teach children the basics whilst giving plenty of space for more curious children to ask more and explore their ideas.

Would highly recommend.

The amazing true story of human computer Katherine Johnson and how she helped to make space travel possible.

Inspiring books like this one are immensely important for free reading or small research topics in classrooms.