Resources
My Name is Leon - extract
A brother chosen. A brother left behind. And a family where you’d least expect to find one. Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to give Jake to strangers. Since Jake is white and Leon is not. As Leon struggles to cope with his anger, certain things can still make him smile –...
The End of the World Running Club extract
When the world ends, what do you try to save? Your family. The End of the World Running Club sees Britain nearly annihilated by asteroids. In Edinburgh, Edgar Hill and his family have survived – just. But despite his best efforts, Edgar hasn’t managed to keep his family together. There’s a hope that they can all be rescued, but with the roads in ruins and society destroyed, Edgar has only one choice: cross Britain on foot. In three weeks. It’s 550 miles of blood, sweat, tears and a constant...
Chatterbooks Newsletter
You can find out the latest about Chatterbooks by taking a look at our August newsletter.
Cruel Heart Broken Discussion Points
Inspired by a tragic true story, Cruel Heart Broken is a taut tale of guilt, impossible choices, and the consequences that follow. Laurie is a good girl – so everyone thinks. But eight months ago she did something that she can’t undo and it’s tearing her apart. Charlie used to be her best friend. He’s done something he regrets too… and now someone has died. Two impulsive decisions. Two toxic secrets. Too many hearts broken. Partly inspired by the true story of a teacher in France who...
The Wilderness War activity pack
Celebrating the publication of The Wilderness War by Julia Green, OUP with the Woodland Trust have put together this fabulous outdoors activity pack. Includes how to build a fire, create your own frog pond and how to distinguish animal tracks. Perfect for the long summer days!
The Bolds design a hat competition sheet
Celebrating the brilliantly funny series The Bolds by Julian Clary and illustrated by David Roberts, we have this great drawing competition for children. We want children to design an unusual hat – the stranger the better! Mrs Bold makes hats out all sorts of unusual objects, such as egg boxes, clothes pegs and old bird’s nests. The best, most inventive hat will win a stack of funny books worth £100. Find out more by downloading this competition sheet.
The BFG Phizz-Whizzing Lesson Plans
Read Roald Dahl’s The BFG with your class before Steven Spielberg’s film comes out in July – with the help of the new Officially Phizz-Whizzing Lesson Plans. Whether you’ve read it before or are discovering the Big Friendly Giant’s story for the first time, the resources, created by the experts at Penguin Schools and TeachIt Primary, follow the plot so it’s easy to read-along. With Literacy and PSHE objectives, they explore the themes of friendship, dreams and believing – and there’s a...
A Brave Bear Father’s Day event kit
With Father’s Day fast approaching on 19th June, Walker Books invite libraries to join them in celebrating dads and the wonderful role they have in our lives with their A Brave Bear Father’s Day event kit. The kit has instructions on how to run an event, with interactive story time and lots of colouring in and drawing activities for little ones to do with their dads.
Chatterbooks Activity Packs - List
Here are some of the most popular Chatterbooks activity packs, published over the past few years, with direct links for downloading.
Sporty Stories Chatterbooks activity pack
The 2016 Olympic Games will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from August 5 to August 21, 2016. More than 10,500 athletes from 206 countries, will take part. And in June it’s the UEFA EURO 2016 football tournament! Here’s a Chatterbooks pack celebrating the games and bringing you a great collection of sporty stories and activities for your group to enjoy!
DK Coding Kit
This DK coding kit is the perfect tool to help you teach children the very basics of computer coding. It contains information on how to use the programme Scratch, plus fun activities which help familiarise children with using Scratch themselves.
Stories to Enthrall Chatterbooks activity pack
This Chatterbooks activity pack brings you a treasury of stories to enthral – stories from around the world which have been shared through generations, and are now magically retold and illustrated in the books featured in this pack. Legends, folk tales and fairy tales – some with a twist! – all for your Chatterbooks group to read and share and enjoy.
The Impact of Chatterbooks on Children’s Reading Enjoyment, Behaviours and Attitudes - Executive Summary
Executive Summary of the evaluation report by Clémence Pabion and Christina Clark, National Literacy Trust. The report looks at the impact of Chatterbooks on children’s reading enjoyment, behaviour and attitudes, relating to our Department for Education funded project to establish KS2 book clubs in primary schools, and encourage year 3 library membership.
The Impact of Chatterbooks on Children’s Reading Enjoyment, Behaviours and Attitudes
Evaluation report by Clémence Pabion and Christina Clark, National Literacy Trust. The report looks at the impact of Chatterbooks on children’s reading enjoyment, behaviour and attitudes, relating to our Department for Education funded project to establish KS2 book clubs in primary schools, and encourage year 3 library membership.
Chatterbooks Children's Pre-Survey
You can use this questionnaire before children start attending Chatterbooks sessions. Created by The National Literacy Trust for The Reading Agency to evaluate the impact of Chatterbooks on children’s reading enjoyment, behaviour and attitudes.
Chatterbooks Children's Post-Survey
You can use this questionnaire after children have attended Chatterbooks sessions – either a programme of, say, 10 sessions, or a fixed time period, e.g. a year. Created by The National Literacy Trust for The Reading Agency to evaluate the impact of Chatterbooks on children’s reading enjoyment, behaviour and attitudes.
LEGO Nexo Knights design your own shield activity sheet
If your Chatterbooks group likes LEGO, why not download this NEXO Knights activity sheet from DK! What power does your NEXO shield show?
My Little Pony colouring sheet
DK have have made a fun My Little Pony colouring activity sheet for Chatterbooks groups. Remember to use lots of bright colours!
Year 3 Library Membership Report
Report on the Year 3 Library Membership element of the KS2 Book Clubs and Library Membership project, funded by the Department for Education.
Chatterbooks in Primary School Settings - Report
A report from Coventry University’s Centre for Psychology, Behaviour and Achievement who evaluated Chatterbooks in 15 primary schools in the West Midlands, in a project funded by The Mercers’ Charitable Foundation in 2014/2015.
Time-Travellers Chatterbooks activity pack
If you could travel through time where would you go? To the past or the future? How might you get there? In a time machine – or maybe through a time-slip? Whom would you like to meet? This Chatterbooks Time-Travellers activity pack brings you a wealth of reading and activity ideas to inspire your time-travelling imaginations!
Max Crumbly activity sheet and competition
Simon & Schuster will soon be celebrating the publication of the first book in The Misadventures of Max Crumbly series by Rachel Renée Russell, author of the hugely popular Dork Diaries. We have a fun decorate your own school locker activity sheet for Chatterbooks groups to download. Plus, best decorated locker wins a great prize!
The Vegetarian - reading notes
Reading notes for Man Booker International Prize shortlisted book The Vegetarian. Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, commits a shocking act of subversion by becoming vegetarian. As her rebellion causes rifts in her marriage, Yeong-hye spirals further and further into...
The Story of the Lost Child - reading notes
Reading notes for Man Booker International Prize shortlisted book The Story of the Lost Child. The fourth and final instalment of the Neapolitan Novels series, this is the dazzling saga of the friendship between two women: brilliant, bookish Elena and fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both women fought to escape the neighbourhood in which they grew up: a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous in a world...
A Strangeness in My Mind - reading notes
Reading notes for Man Booker International Prize shortlisted book A Strangeness in My Mind. This is the story of boza seller Mevlut, the woman to whom he wrote three years’ worth of love letters, and their life in Istanbul. Between 1969 and 2012, Mevlut works a number of different jobs on the streets of Istanbul, from selling yoghurt and cooked rice to guarding a car park. He observes many different kinds of people thronging the streets, he witnesses all of the transformative moments in the...
The Four Books - reading notes
Reading notes for Man Booker International Prize shortlisted book The Four Books. In the ninety-ninth district of a sprawling labour camp, the Author, Musician, Scholar, Theologian and Technician are undergoing Re-education, to restore their revolutionary zeal and credentials. In charge of this process is the Child, who delights in draconian rules, monitoring behaviour and confiscating treasured books. But when bad weather arrives, followed by the ‘three bitter years’ of The Great Famine, the...
A Whole Life - reading notes
Reading notes for Man Booker International Prize shortlisted book A Whole Life. Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he doesn’t ask for her hand in marriage but instead has some of his friends light her name at dusk across the mountain. When Marie dies in an avalanche, pregnant with their first child, Andreas’ heart is broken. He leaves his valley...
A General Theory of Oblivion - reading notes
Reading notes for Man Booker International Prize shortlisted book, A General Theory of Oblivion. A wild patchwork of a novel, which tells the story of Angola through Ludo, a woman who bricks herself into her apartment on the eve of Angolan independence. For the next 30 years she lives off vegetables and pigeons, and burns her furniture to stay warm. But the outside world seeps in, through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers and a note attached...
DKfindout! Chatterbooks activity pack
Here is an introduction to www.dkfindout.com – a great website for young people to search, learn and explore information about their favourite subjects, and all their homework topics. It’s clear, colourful, attractive, and easy to use, with hundreds of information pages plus quizzes, videos and animations.
Thrills, adventures, spies and detectives! Chatterbooks activity pack
Following up on our original Spies and Thrillers Chatterbooks activity pack here is another pack on the same theme, with more great reading, discussion and activity ideas. This pack is geared more to the older children in your group; it does also have reading suggestions which younger children will especially enjoy.
