Skip to content

The King’s Runaway Crown by Rosalind Spark

Celebrate the coronation with a special pack featuring The King’s Runaway Crown, a fun royal caper covering themes of anxiety, empathy, and community in a light-touch and warm-hearted way.

It’s a stupendous day, an exciting day, a MOST important day – and everyone, from the King’s butler to the palace guards, is feeling nervous. They’re all getting ready when Colin, the King’s Jack Russell, grabs the crown and runs away. Soon, he is being chased by the butler, the guards – even the pigeons and crowd gathered for the event! But it takes little Violet, aged 5, to work out what the problem is. Maybe Colin is nervous about his important new job as the king’s dog. Actually, everyone else admits they’re nervous too – especially the King, who has the biggest job of all. Can Violet help get Colin and the crown back to the King in time for the coronation?

The digital pack includes:

  • The King’s Runaway Crown Activity Sheet: Decorate your very own crown.
  • The King’s Runaway Crown Colouring Sheet: Colour in this picture of colin stealing the king’s crown.
  • The King’s Runaway Crown Lesson Plan: Use this lesson plan inspired by The King’s Runaway Crown to help your Year 1 pupils develop their English skills.

We would love to see you enjoying the resources on social media using #TheKingsRunawayCrown and tag Oxford Children’s (OxfordChildrens on Twitter and Instagram), Ian Smith (iansmithillustration, Instagram) and readingagency.

News

Radio 2 Book Club - Winter titles

The Winter season of the Radio 2 Book Club is out now, with brilliant brand-new fiction titles to discover. The BBC Radio 2 Book Club is on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. It features a wide range of titles and authors, recommending great reads from both new and much-loved writers, encouraging listeners to perhaps try out a genre they might not have read before, and share their opinions and insights on the titles and great reads they’re enjoying right now.

Resources

How to start a reading group

Interested in joining a reading group or starting one of your own? Download our quick guide to getting started. You can also download icebreaker questions to help get your discussion started, and a social media guide to show how you can share your reading with others online.

News

Discussion guides

We know how useful a discussion guide is for your book club meeting, so here you’ll find some recent guides provided by publishers. Free to download, you can use them to help choose your next book and guide your discussion.

View our other programmes