This book is fun! Readers will learn all about the different jobs, machines and materials that are used on a building site. A bonus to this book is the more than 30 flaps that readers can open, explore and learn in more detail about the object they are looking at.
Published in September 2023, 'Reading Matters' sees the return of the 'best of the year' format to our annual reading guide.
Mal is a young girl who lives on the Archipelago; she’s fiercely determined and loves nothing more than using her flying coat to soar high into the skies. Mal’s surroundings initially seem fairly ordinary until we find out that this magical land is home to many fantastical creatures, and something is happening that threatens their very existence …
Trust no one is the rule to remember when reading this fast-paced adventure story. Rosalyn Quest wants to have mundane teenage experiences, like attending a gymnastics summer camp, and making friends. However, coming from a famous family of thieves, being normal is next to impossible. After her mother, a fellow famous thief, is kidnapped, Rosalyn is forced to do whatever it takes to get her back safely. Rosalyn enters into the Thieves' Gambit - a high stakes competition for young criminals - where the winner is granted one wish.
On the run from terrible danger, our heroine, Otilla, stumbles upon an old abandoned house atop a hill in a dark forest. She is lost and needs shelter from the snow, so she enters the house where she meets a skull. The skull is a welcoming host, and the two quickly form an unlikely friendship. However, the skull is afraid of something mysterious that visits every night. Can brave Otilla protect them both?
Frankie Finkleton’s world is a very busy one. She’s a typical eleven-year-old with a loving family and lots going on at school. Frankie also has a sideline as a very secret investigator and from time to time goes on adventures to an imaginary world called Thoughtopolis with her younger brother Fred and her dog Blue.
Judith Eagle is well established as a writer of middle grade adventures with a classic feel, and fans will be delighted with her excellent fourth novel, The Stolen Songbird. The songbird of the title is a painting, one of a series of three whose theft is at the centre of this lively tale. Part heist, part family mystery, The Stolen Songbird bounds along with great verve, plenty of twists, but also a lot of heart and compassion.
Gil bolts for freedom on his way to another foster-placement. When his backpack is stolen, with his treasured photograph and his hag-stone, his pursuit of the thief brings him to an island dividing the motorway, and to the ramshackle home of three other runaways. Riley and Grayson escaped an abusive parent, and with Junk, the dog, steal supplies. They tell Gil about another inhabitant, already established. Pez ran away from a cult, bringing with her stolen seeds, experience of self-sufficiency, and a conviction that isolation and silence are safer than human company.
Maria Motúnráyo Adébísi’s debut novel is the first in a new and exhilarating fantasy series based on West African Mythology. When thirteen-year-old orphaned protagonist, Koku, accidentally unleashes an evil demon spirit during a school trip to the British Museum, his uncle sends him away for the summer. Tired of feeling unwanted, frustratingly misunderstood and of fighting his daily battle with sickle cell anaemia, Koku arrives to the home he doesn’t remember, Olori, feeling powerless.
Set in July 1936 aboard the Queen Mary cruise ship, Alice is having the experience of a lifetime even though she must defy her father to roam the ship … With her new friend, Sonny, Alice must unravel an urgent mystery when someone is attacked and soon learns that there’s more than one secret to be revealed too.
