Book Monitor - books from across the world

Engaging reads for children, from Books go Walkabout

The World’s Most Atrocious Animals by Philip Bunting

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On July 13, 2023

In Happy Yak, Featured children's book, Quarto KNows

This witty, quirky, colourfully illustrated and fact-filled book features some of the most terrifying and shocking animals on the planet! 
The third title in the series from the hilarious Philip Bunting is filled with facts about some of the scariest creatures in the natural world.

Meet the enormous murder hornets of east and southeast Asia, the poisonous blue-ringed octopus, Africa’s hungry but deadly hippos and some truly shocking electric eels, among many more truly scary creatures!

The antagonist voice (speaking though cheeky annotations) points out the most frightening aspects of each creature’s characteristics, while the narrator’s voice describes engaging, factual information about each animal’s seemingly scary characteristics. Are they really as scary as they seem?

With hilarious text throughout and bright, contemporary illustrations, this guide to terrifying animals contains funny labelled diagrams and fabulous facts. It will help teach kids about the animals we fear and whether their gruesome reputation is deserved!

Philip Bunting’s books have been translated into multiple languages, and published in over 25 countries around the world. Since his first title was published in 2017, Philip has received multiple accolades, including Honours from the Children’s Book Council of Australia. His titles include Mopoke and How Did I Get Here? Philip’s work deliberately encourages playful interaction between the reader and child, allowing his books to create a platform for genuine intergenerational engagement, and fun. Philip lives in Queensland, Australia.

Happy Yak are the publishers, an imprint of Quarto Knows with an amazing portfolio of intriguing books for children.

Quirky Creatures is a series dedicated to seeking out the weird and wonderful denizens of the natural world and explaining why they are so strange, from the ridiculous to the truly terrifying. Also available in this series is The World’s Most Ridiculous Animals and The World’s Most Pointless Animals.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

Sala, Mountain Warrior

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On July 11, 2023

In Featured authors, Featured children's book, Featured illustrators, Otter-Barry

By Wakanyi Hoffman

Illustrated by Onyinye Iwu

A story of adventure and courage for all children. It is wonderfully illustrated and expresses just how we can all overcome our fears to achieve amazing skills and journeys.

Sala has a real mountain to climb in this authentic story set among the Samburu people of Kenya. There’s a school trip to climb the mountain near Sala’s home and she’s excited – but nervous too, because she’s the only girl to take the challenge….

But Grandmother shows the way, inspiring Sala with her mountain lore, her special beads and her storytelling. Can Sala climb to the top of the mountain and be the first warrior girl of her clan?


Set in the Samburu region of northern Kenya, this is an exciting, inspirational story about courage and empowerment.

Wakanyi Hoffman was born in Kenya and recalls visiting her grandmother’s home, with snow-capped Mount Kenya in the background, and listening to stories that not only entertained but told her about the world. Wakanyi is a storyteller, author, journalist and keeper of indigenous wisdom.

Onyinye Iwu is a secondary school teacher and freelance illustrator. She was born in Italy to Nigerian parents and moved to Britain as a teenager. She has a degree in Architecture and a Masters in Cultural Diaspora Ethnicity. Her work as an illustrator is inspired by Africa and especially her Igbo heritage. She is the illustrator of the Too Small Tola books by Atinuke. Onyinye lives in London.

Otter-Barry Books publish a portfolio of diverse and incredibly interesting books. Sala, The Mountain Warrior is a great story and new book.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

A Hero Like Me by Angela Joy and Jen Reid, illustrated by Leire Salaberria

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On June 9, 2023

In Frances Lincoln Children's Books, BookMonitor, Children's books, Featured children's book

Empower children to stand up for what is right with this picture book inspired by the real-life events around the statue of a slave trader, its toppling and heroic replacement.
 
They call him ‘HERO’, but he’s no HERO – not to me.

This inspiring picture book of events through the eyes of a young girl; called Jen, who, every day, on her way to school, sees a towering statue. A statue of a man who sold freedom for cotton and tea. The world around her says this man is a hero. But she knows he’s not a hero – not a real one.

Heroes are hard to find. The girl looks for them around corners, under rocks, and on TV, but there are none that she can see. And so, she marches and shouts for them instead. And that statue – he doesn’t belong. He doesn’t stand for Kindness. He doesn’t stand for Peace. Maybe he shouldn’t stand at all.

 
A Hero Like Me is inspired by the events of 7 June 2020, when a statue of seventeenth-century slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into Bristol Harbour during an anti-racism protest. Co-author Jen Reid was one of the protesters that day, and despite being afraid of heights, she spontaneously climbed onto the empty plinth and raised her fist high above her head – a moment that was captured on camera and shared around the world.
 
On the morning of 15 July, a statue of Jen by Marc Quinn was added to the empty plinth. It was called A Surge of Power and it gained national attention for the 24 hours it was in place, and beyond. 

A Hero Like Me empowers children to have courage to stand up for what is right and be their own hero. It shows every child that they have a voice in their community and a say in who is on their streets. That they too have power, just like Jen.

Another brilliant ‘fact finder picture book’ from publishers Frances Lincoln, part of Quarto Knows.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

Sea Change, Save the Ocean edited by Tobias Hickey, published by Otter- Barry Books

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On June 5, 2023

In Featured children's book

What a captivating book!

The foreword from Ambassador Peter Thomson, United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean describes how, ‘we cannot have a healthy planet without a healthy ocean’.

This is a ‘red alert’ for humanity. Where better to start than with children who already know the dangers we are facing, and are prepared to start actions to save our world for future generations

Otter-Barry have published this unique book with a collection of original postcards and messages from 50 illustrators across the world, working to celebrate and protect the precious life in our oceans. This is an amazing collection and will provide schools with a catalogue of illustrators to follow.



Each illustrator has provided an image of sea creatures, fishes or other sea life, with a message of inspiration to help point out the massive and imminent dangers climate change, pollution, over fishing and other human-led interventions are having on our oceans. The postcards are displayed under three headings: Celebrating the Ocean; The Danger to the Ocean; Take Action for the Ocean.

The world-class illustrators include Axel Scheffler, Roger Mello, Isol, Barroux, Piet Grobler, Yuval Zommer, Petr Horáček, Jackie Morris, Nicola Davies, PJ Lynch and Jane Ray.

The countries represented include Argentina, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Iran, Ireland, Israel, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, UK, USA.

Otter Barry are the publishers and Sea Change is a beautiful books with enormous potential for changing lives and attitudes for young people and adults too.

 This book is staying on my sofa table! But its effect will go far.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

English Association Winners of 2023 English 4-11 Picture Book Awards

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On June 2, 2023

In Picture Book Awards, Featured children's book

The English Association is proud to present the winners of the 2023 English 4-11 Picture Book Awards.

Established in 1995, the awards are presented by the English Association to the best children’s picture books of the year.  Awards are given to Fiction and Non-Fiction in age ranges 4-7 years and 7-11 years.

The winning books are chosen by the editorial board of English 4-11, the journal for primary teachers published by The English Association and the United Kingdom Literacy Association, from a shortlist selected by a panel of teachers and Primary specialists.

Each year, one of the books submitted to the English 4-11 Picture Book Awards is selected as the recipient of the Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-Fiction. The winners in each category, plus the winner of this year’s Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-Fiction, were announced at the online Awards Ceremony on Thursday 25 May 2023.

The award for 2023 was won by Narwhal: The Arctic Unicorn by Justin Anderson and Jo Weaver (Walker Books).

The Chair of the judging panel, Dr Sally Wilkinson, commented that…

It is a pleasure to honour prolific and well-loved children’s non-fiction authors like Nicola Davies, Anita Ganeri, and Justin Anderson, who have won many awards for their writing, film, and television work, all in celebration of our amazing natural world. These authors have worked in partnership with illustrators Abbie Cameron, Jianan Liu, and Jo Weaver to create rich, engaging texts for us to dive in to. Our fiction winners, Mariajo Illustrajo and Levi Pinfold, represent new, emerging talent and established, award-winning author-illustrators, both with lyrical, detailed works to share with us. We’re thrilled to announce this year’s winners, and look forward to seeing what next year’s competition brings!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the publishers, authors, and illustrators who sent in books to the Awards.  

A very exciting short list of books for these categories of children’s books from The English Association.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

It’s Her Story: Irena Sendler

By

On May 12, 2023

In World War 2, Sunbird Books, Featured children's book

This is a fascinating graphic novel about Irena Sendler, a humanitarian and social worker in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.

Her job allowed her to pass through the armed gates of the Warsaw ghetto, bringing limited aid to the 450,000 Jewish people who were forcibly moved there. In secret, Irena built a network of people to smuggle 2,500 children out of the ghetto, saving their lives. And in a hidden jar, she kept their family names.

This is her story. Part of the It’s Her Story series from Sunbird Books.

Margaret Littman, the author  lives in Nashville, Tennessee and is a writer  and editor. She writes stories about people who have done amazing things and explored country music  and huge amounts of different and exciting projects. In her book Irena Sendla, Margaret retraces some of her ancestry from Poland.

Sara Luna is an illustrator from Los Angeles with a wonderful portfolio of illustrations for children’s books.

Sunbird Books are the publishers with a portfolio of innovative and original books for children. From board books to picture books to graphic novels, their  titles represent strong, lively, and diverse voices that reflect children’s realities and feed their imaginations.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

Books Go Walkabout

The Secret Life of Oceans by Moira Butterfield and illustrated by Vivian Mineker

By

On May 4, 2023

In Happy Yak, Featured children's book, Quarto Kids

The Secret Life of Oceans is a stunning book, full of wonderful images with delightful stories and engaging facts. It will enable a love of Oceans and nature on the next generation, inspiring them to look after the world around them.This book has been on my coffee table and is a real joy for anyone visiting. It just looks so inviting and is a ‘Wow’ with everyone who opens the book!

For instance , did you know that blue whales are the largest creatures on earth? And that corals are actually tiny creatures?
Tia the green turtle guides you through this beautiful first guide to ocean life around the globe. Learn about ocean homes and who lives where, big creatures (whales and whale sharks), little creatures (baby animals to zooplankton), incredible journeys, sea weather, and how to help save our oceans.  Intertwined in the facts you can read magical folklore sea stories from around the planet.


Following on from The Secret of Trees, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Secret Life of Birds, Oceans is the next book in the series. Sumptuous and detailed illustrations have pride of place in this magical book that mixes natural history with a splash of fantasy, creating a book to be pored over time and again.

Moira Butterfield is an internationally published children’s book author. Her work includes picture books, board books, fiction and highly commended non-fiction books that seek to spark a child’s imagination about our world. She currently lives in Bath, UK, with her family, where she loves to cycle, sew and sing. 

Vivian Mineker is a Taiwanese American from Taipei and Portland, currently working out of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her interest in art began at a young age, using drawing to express herself and her inner imaginary world. She uses watercolour, coloured pencil and digital processes to create a blend of traditional texture with a modern look and feel.

Happy Yak are the publishers and are part of Quarto group of publishers, they have a great range of eye catching designs bringing non-fiction title to life.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture      Cressida Cowell 2023

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On April 21, 2023

In Featured children's book, Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture

How To Train Your Reader and Life-Changing Libraries.

Cressida Cowell is the multi-award-winning author and illustrator of the bestselling The Wizards of Once and How to Train Your Dragon series, and the author of the Emily Brown picture books, illustrated by Neal Layton. She was the Waterstones Children’s Laureate from 2019 – 2022.

An absolute joy to spend an hour listening to Cressida Cowell at the Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture 2023, talking about young readers, the enormous need for a library in every primary school in the country and most important of all, the huge benefit and impact on ‘Reading for Pleasure’ for children and young people.

Many facts and quotes show the absolute importance of enabling all children to be able to read, to find themselves in another world, to seek adventures, to solve problems and to be immersed in words and illustrations.

This very short blog is just a tiny ‘eye squirt’ of a huge consideration of the problem we seem to have drifted into, whereby, our children are not engaged with reading for pleasure. Instead as Cressida pointed out, we are bombarding them with codes, structures, and methods to decode words. What we are not doing is engaging with them to impact on their creativity, their emotional intelligence, their understanding of worlds not of their own making and so much more.

Cressida quoted Einstein many times and the one that stood out for me,

 ‘If you want a child to be intelligent read them fairy tales’.

Apparently reading for joy is a key indicator for future success. That was no surprise to me, but it seems that government circles are not so sure about the ‘fairy tale’ image of a good education and prefer other more stringent measures, even if they don’t work!

Cressida’s many books are full of her own illustrations which are part of the reading process and give as much to the book as the words. Engaging, dynamic, stimulating and so expressive. She has created characters and situations for anyone to follow the story and turn the pages.

‘The book is the ultimate survivor’, said Cressida where  books and words have been with us for so long and will continue. The book covers she saw as enticing ‘sweets’ to appeal to her readers and indicate just a sparkle of what was inside!

Whilst being Children’s Laureate from 2019-2022, Cressida created the Life Changing Libraries programme and the designs and books of the libraries which were created in primary schools were stunning, ‘Reading is Magic!’

‘Writing for children is the best thing to do’ said Cressida with so much enthusiasm and joy. We are so lucky to have an author who is sparked by this love and enjoyment and desire to reach out to children everywhere. And her final quote was from Garrison Keiller,

‘Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.’

With many thanks to the Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture for this stunning talk to a packed audience in Homerton College Cambridge.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

Books Go Walkabout

The Who,What,Why of Zoology by Lucy Letherland and Jules Howard

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On April 12, 2023

In Featured children's book, WideEyed Editions

All about Zoology…

…The Incredible Science of the Animal Kingdom from Lucy Letherland and Jules Howard is a new release from Wide Eyed Editions.

An amazing book of the facts and quirky knowledge of the animal kingdom or Zoology, if you are studying at University. The book is so packed with interesting facts that it would a fascinating and useful read for research for all ages, from 7-25+.

If however, you are like me and just interested, this is a book to dip into and read some amazing information about our world. For instance, the fact bubble called Frog Finders on the Rainforest Rangers pages describes how triangulation works to find elusive frogs.

Join the scientists uncovering the secrets of the animal kingdom in this funny, fact-packed introduction to zoology. The Who, What, Why of Zoology is an exciting first book on this fascinating field of science. From the deepest oceans to Himalayan valleys, zoologists explore far and wide to better understand the worlds of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and nearly anything else that can walk, fly, or swim!

Not only is this book filled with up-to-the-minute facts about your favourite animals, but it also goes behind the scenes and out in the field to show how real zoologists find out more about the creatures we know, and even discover new ones.

Each chapter dives into a different real-world environment to observe the animals that live there, then fills the scene with zoologists to explore how this exciting science actually works. Then, turn the page to learn about the modern mysteries to which scientists are still searching for answers. Every page is bursting with facts you’ve never heard before, as well as plenty of funny detail to keep you searching for hours.

There are so many interesting sections, such as Wonders of the Wilderness but best thing to do is to purchase the book for a complete read. You will not be disappointed!

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

Little People, Big Dreams Louis Pasteur

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On March 6, 2023

In Featured children's book

Louis Pasteur , father of modern medicine

Discover the life of Louis Pasteur, the French chemist and the father of modern medicine.


 This inspiring book part of the Little People, Big Dreams features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the iconic chemist’s life.
Little Louis was born in France during a time when doctors were still trying to figure out what made people sick.

During his teen years, he discovered a love for science and became famous for figuring out how to kill off damaging microbes. Through his curiosity and creativity (and lots of trial and error), his research led to the development of vaccinations, a vital tool in today’s world. 

Microbiology starts here…


​Little People, BIG DREAMS is a bestselling series of books and educational games that explore the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream.

Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara is the author for all the books and it is her inspiration that has created the series. The publishers are Quarto Kids, which has a vast portfolio of books for children and young people which make a positive difference in their learning and knowledge gaining.

Sue Martin – Children’s Literacy Specialist

Stories across the world…



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