Resources
Gordon's Brilliant Balloon Activities
Celebrate the release of Gordon’s Great Escape, the new book by Sue Hendra & Paul Linnet, with this brilliant balloon activity kit!
Thorfinn The Nicest Viking activity sheets
Download these fun Thorfinn The Nicest Viking activity sheets for your Chatterbooks group, including colouring sheets, secret codes and finding our your viking name!
A First Book of Animals poems
To celebrate National Poetry Day we have five wonderful animal poems from A First Book of Animals by Nicola Davies, beautifully illustrated by Petr Horacek (Walker Books). This book is filled with wonderful animals and poems, including beetles, koalas and flamingos – share them with your Chatterbooks group today!
Little Gems Chatterbooks activity pack
This pack is all about Little Gems – the series of books from publisher Barrington Stoke especially for children aged 5 to 8 years of age. Little Gems are lovely books written by favourite authors. They are high quality stories presented in an attractive chunky format. Unique accessibility features support all early readers on their journey to reading independence, and cream paper and a special easy to read font ensure a smooth read for all.
We Found A Hat Activity Sheets
This kit for Jon Klassen enthusiasts everywhere features all your favorite hat-obsessed, shifty-eyed animals in fun activities, from drawing to mazes.
Goodnight Everyone by Chris Haughton Book Trailer
From the multi-award winning picture book maker of A Bit Lost, Oh No, George! And Shh! We Have a Plan, comes a stunningly illustrated bedtime book, perfect for sending toddlers off to dreamland. With Chris’ signature block colour design, we are introduced to bears, deer, rabbits and teeny, tiny mice – who are all beginning to feel really … rather … tired … YAWN!
Chatterbooks Week Press Release Template
This pack is designed to help you promote your Chatterbooks Week activities locally. It includes a press release template and a social media guide.
Chatterbooks Week Social Media Card
We’ve teamed up with Walker Books to create a social media card for Chatterbooks Week. Print out this card and share the book that made you a “Child of Books” on social media.
How-To: Run a reverse book club
The Crisis Skylight and World Book Night Book Club, run by The Reading Agency, meets once a week in London. The book club runs in a ‘reverse’ format, with no member expected to have read the book before coming to the group. It aims to offer different entry-points into the book for members to begin their journey of literary discovery. The ultimate goal of the book club is that it is welcoming and accessible to all of Crisis’s clients, no matter their reading level. Members are able to drop in...
Chatterbooks Week Activity Pack
This is a Chatterbooks Activity Pack to celebrate Chatterbooks Week which takes place from 1-8 October 2016. The theme of this pack is illustration and In this pack you’ll find lots of ideas for your group’s activities and discussion,
Chatterbooks Week Book List
To celebrate Chatterbooks Week (1-8 Oct) here are some recent books from our Children’s Reading Partners publisher partners, showing a range of inspiring approaches to illustration – in picture books, and also in illustrated fiction and non-fiction.
Banned Books Week 2016
To celebrate Banned Books Week this month, download this list of notable banned books from Islington Libraries. Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries in the US. Since then, according to the American Library Association, more than 11,300 books have been challenged. Islington Library and Heritage Services, along with the British Library and Free Word, are celebrating Banned Books week and...
We Found a Hat book trailer
Two turtles have found a hat. The hat looks good on both of them. But there are two turtles. And there is only one hat. . . . Hold on to your hats for this video from Walker Books introducing We Found a Hat, the conclusion of the celebrated hat trilogy by Caldecott Medalist Jon Klassen
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.
