Resources
Child of Books Chatterbooks Pack
A Child of Books is a beautiful picture book by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston that celebrates a love of stories and exploring the imagination.This Chatterbooks activity pack brings you discussion and activity ideas for your reading groups, inspired by A Child of Books.
An Introduction to A Child of Books with Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston
In this video from Walker books, Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston discuss their new book, A Child of Books. I am a Child of Books. I come from a world of stories, And upon my imagination, I float. In this inspiring, lyrical tale about the rewards of reading and sharing stories, a little girl sails her raft “across a sea of words” to arrive at the house of a small boy. There she invites him to come away with her on an adventure. Guided by his new friend, the boy unlocks his imagination and a...
DKfindout! activity sheets
DKfindout! is a new fun, non-fiction series which compliments DK’s free online encyclopedia – www.dkfindout.com. The books are full of surprising facts and amazing pictures which inspire children to find out. DK’s free resource pack includes a Ancient Roman poster, plus five activity sheets which are both fun and educational. The packs supports the national curriculum at key stage 2 and all the answer can be found online – to make sure there is no peeking at the answers!
DKfindout! The Romans poster
DKfindout! is a new fun, non-fiction series which compliments DK’s free online encyclopedia – www.dkfindout.com. The books are full of surprising facts and amazing pictures which inspire children to find out. DK’s free resource pack includes a Ancient Roman poster, plus five activity sheets which are both fun and educational. The packs supports the national curriculum at key stage 2 and all the answer can be found online – to make sure there is no peeking at the answers!
Children Just Like Me poster
The classic children’s non-fiction book is updated for the 21st century, 21 years after its original publication. With over 40 children around the globe children can find out what it’s like living across the world. Discover what it’s like to live on a Vietnamese houseboat, help out on a farm in Ireland, and walk to school during the rainy season in Tanzania. Find out about the food children eat, the traditions they celebration with their families, the clothes they wear, and their hopes and...
Video: Guy Bass reads Spynosaur
SPYNOSAUR is secret agency Department 6’s not-so secret weapon. Created by mysterious science rays, Spynosaur has the mind of a super spy and the body of a dinosaur. Dedicated to protecting the world from criminal masterminds, this prehistoric powerhouse dishes out justice and puns to a host of eccentric enemies. But when he and his sidekick daughter Amber are sent to rescue a captured fellow agent, Spynosaur becomes embroiled in a plot to frame him. Can he and Amber clear his name in time to...
Miss You extract
Tess is in Florence for a final, idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever – but not in the way she expects. Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically. Gus tries to be a dutiful son, but longs to escape and discover what sort of person he is going to be. For one day, the paths of an eighteen-year-old girl and boy criss-cross before they each return to England. Over the course of the next sixteen...
Miss You reading group questions
Tess is in Florence for a final, idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever – but not in the way she expects. Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically. Gus tries to be a dutiful son, but longs to escape and discover what sort of person he is going to be. For one day, the paths of an eighteen-year-old girl and boy criss-cross before they each return to England. Over the course of the next sixteen...
Les Parisiennes - Chapter 1
What did it feel like to be a woman living in Paris from 1939 to 1949? These were years of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation and secrets until – finally – renewal and retribution. But this is not just a book about wartime. In fascinating detail Sebba explores the aftershock of the Second World War and the choices demanded. How did the women who survived to see the Liberation of Paris come to terms with their actions and those of others? Although politics lies at its heart, Les...
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill - First chapter extract
The Mare is Mary Gaitskill’s first novel in over a decade. Exploring themes of parenthood, race and class, there are big ideas and extremely compelling characters for reading groups to get their teeth into. Ginger is in her forties and a recovering alcoholic when she meets and marries Paul. When it becomes clear it’s too late for her to have a baby of her own, she tries to persuade him to consider adoption – but he refuses. As a compromise, they sign up to an organisation that sends poor...
David Mark DS McAvoy Series Reading Guide
David Mark spent more than fifteen years as a journalist, including seven years as a crime reporter with the Yorkshire Post – walking the Hull streets that would later become the setting for the Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy novels. He has written five novels in the McAvoy series, Dark Winter, Original Sin, Sorrow Bound, Taking Pity and Dead Pretty Dark Winter was selected for the Harrogate New Blood panel, a Richard & Judy pick and a Sunday Times bestseller. He has recently completed...
Q&A with Adrian McKinty, author of the Sean Duffy series
Download Serpent’s Tail’s interview with Adrian McKinty, author of the Sean Duffy thriller series, set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The latest in the series, Rain Dogs, was shortlisted for the 2016 Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Prize. Find out more at www.adrianmckinty.com
Women in Translation Month - Reading List
Did you know that less than a third of all literary translations published in the UK and the US were originally written by women? Did you know that women writers win far fewer prizes for their translated books than male writers? Women in Translation Month is all about appreciating the great women writers who do get translated – and of course the people who bring them to us, their translators and publishers. It’s an opportunity to join in a worldwide conversation about outstanding writing from...
Everyone Brave is Forgiven discussion questions
Mary North – young, resourceful, fiercely intelligent, and a newly recruited teacher – resolves to stay in London at the outbreak of the Second World War. For although the city’s children are evacuated in a carefully orchestrated and very public act, a number of the have been returned, quickly and quietly, because the countryside ‘doesn’t want them’. What good is it to teach a child to count, Mary wonders, if you do not show him that he counts for something? Moving from Blitz-torn London to...
Everyone Brave is Forgiven extract
Mary North – young, resourceful, fiercely intelligent, and a newly recruited teacher – resolves to stay in London at the outbreak of the Second World War. For although the city’s children are evacuated in a carefully orchestrated and very public act, a number of the have been returned, quickly and quietly, because the countryside ‘doesn’t want them’. What good is it to teach a child to count, Mary wonders, if you do not show him that he counts for something? Moving from Blitz-torn London to...
Taduno's Song extract
The day a stained brown envelope arrives from Taduno’s homeland, he knows that the time has come to return from exile. Arriving full of trepidation, the musician discovers that his community no longer recognises him, believing that Taduno is dead. His girlfriend Lela has disappeared, taken away by government agents. As he wanders through his house in search of clues, he realises that any traces of his old life have been erased. All that was left of his life and himself are memories. But...
The Memory Stones extract
Heartbreaking and beautiful, The Memory Stones tells the story of the Disappeared, thousands of Argentinians who fell victim to the violence of the period. Depicting the despair and hope of one family seeking to rebuild itself after unimaginable loss, it is a lyrical, devastating portrait of a country that has come face to face with terror and the long, dark shadow it leaves behind.
Chatterbooks evaluation
A copy of the Chatterbooks annual survey 2015-16 for information only. To complete the survey, click on the link below.
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Shelf Talker 5
When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus’s novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in...
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Shelf Talker 4
When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus’s novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in...
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Shelf Talker 3
When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus’s novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in...
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Shelf Talker 2
When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus’s novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in...
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Shelf Talker 1
When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus’s novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in...
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Postcards
When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus’s novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in...
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Recommendation cards
When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus’s novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in...
The Silent Cry by Cathy Glass - Reading group questions
This is the sixteenth fostering memoir by the inspirational foster carer Cathy Glass, giving a real insight into the world of foster care and the heart-breaking and moving stories she encounters along the way. The Silent Cry is the true story of a deeply troubled mother, Laura, who is struggling to cope with her new born Liam and her little girl Kim. With an overbearing family and her own inner demons starting to take over, can Cathy step in before it’s too late?
The Past by Tessa Hadley - Reading guide
Four siblings meet up in their grandparents’ old house for three long, hot summer weeks. But under the idyllic surface lie shattering tensions. Roland has come with his new wife, and his sisters don’t like her. Fran has brought her children, who soon uncover an ugly secret in a ruined cottage in the woods. Alice has invited Kasim, an outsider, who makes plans to seduce Roland’s teenage daughter. And Harriet, the eldest, finds her quiet self-possession ripped apart when passion erupts...
The Summer of Broken Stories by James Wilson extract
England, 1950s. While out playing in the woods, ten-year-old Mark meets a man living in an old railway carriage. Despite his wild appearance, the stranger, who introduces himself as Aubrey Hillyard, is captivating – an irreverent outsider who is shunned by Mark’s fellow villagers, and a writer to boot. Aubrey encourages Mark to tell stories about his own make-believe world, and in return he informs the boy about a novel he is writing – a work of ominous science fiction. As the meddling...
Father's Day by Simon van Booy extract
A beautifully crafted story of an orphaned girl named Harvey and the troubled uncle who raises her Moving between past and present, Father’s Day weaves together the story of Harvey’s childhood on Long Island and her life as a young woman in Paris. Written in raw, spare prose that personifies the characters, this novel is the journey of two people searching for a future in the ruins of their past.
The House at the Edge of the Night extract
On a tiny island off the coast of Italy, Amedeo Esposito, a foundling from Florence, thinks he has found a place where, finally, he can belong. Intrigued by a building the locals believe to be cursed, Amedeo restores the crumbling walls, replaces sagging doors and sweeps floors before proudly opening the bar he names the ‘House at the Edge of Night’. Surrounded by the sound of the sea and the scent of bougainvillea, he and the beautiful, fiercely intelligent Pina begin their lives...
