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Silas and The Marvollous Misfits by Tom Percival

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Silas and The Marvollous Misfits by Tom Percival

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Synopsis
This book is about Erika, a young girl who travels to a dream world while she is asleep. She has a group of friends, some sleep creatures and some human, who are able to change the dreams of children to get rid of their night time worries. They call themselves the dream defenders. Silas, who is a human, helps a boy who is dreaming about his parents being controlling. He is reminded of his own parents and goes into crisis. He goes home to visit his family and ends up in the glooms - a place where the sleep monsters want everyone to think and dream in the same way. These dreams make humans feel sad and removes their sparkle. Silas ends up stuck here, and Erika and the rest of the gang rush to help him, but no one has ever returned from the glooms. In the end, the dream defenders realise to rescue Silas they have to stop the glooms from ruining people's dreams and leaving them feeling sad. They manage to do so and Silas returns to the dream world to continue his job with the dream defenders.
Age/Phase
I would use this book with lower KS2, specifically year 3 or the lower achievers in year 4. There are lots of illustrations which keep the children engaged and the writing is nice and big so children can see it. The book is part of a series which means the characters will be familiar to the children, which is something children of this age group will like. The vocabulary used in the book is suited to this age too, it is not too hard so that the children to understand but it will push the children to use some of the words in their writing.
Type of read
Due to the size of the writing in the book, I would use this as an independent read. It is simple enough for children in LKS2 to understand on their own and is engaging enough to keep their attention.
Tasks/Activities/Questions
I would ask children what their favourite part of the book was and why. Children could write this in a reading journal.
Children could draw their own illustrations to match the book. They could draw themselves in a dream and describe how the dream defenders could help them.
To generate book talk, I would ask children if they would want to read the rest of the books in the series and why/why not.

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The Cooking Club Detectives by Ewa Jozefkowicz

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The Cooking Club Detectives by Ewa Jozefkowicz

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Synopsis
This story is about a girl, Erin, who, I guess, is around 12 years old. She has moved to a new apartment with her Mum and has started a new school. She makes friends with a group and she starts to attend the cooking club at the local community centre. Her Mum loses her job but also loves cooking, she auditions for a cooking show but falls at the last hurdle. Her friends and their older siblings help Erin to put together a website for her Mum to share her recipes. When the community centre is sold to a mystery buyer, Erin and her friends become detectives to try and save it. They follow  leads to try and find the buyer to convince them to change their mind. It turns out that *insert name*, one of Erin's friends, Dad is the buyer and that he wants to renovate  the community centre. The story ends with a big party at the community centre and Erin's Mum gets a job working at a university as a tutor.
This book covers topics such as e-safety, unemployment, and poverty.
Age/Phase
I think this book is for lower KS2, I would maybe use it specifically for year w3. The book is very easy to read and I feel that all abilities in year 3 would be able to read it with some help.
Type of Read
I would use this book as a guided group read. I think that the language in this book is easily decodable with only some words, mostly names, that will need to be broken down in order for the children to read. Children of year 3/4 ages would enjoy this story too, there is lots happening and it may be something that they can relate too.
Tasks/Activities/Questions
This could be related cross-curricular in DT. There are recipes with instructions in the book that children could follow or even create their own.
In an English task, children could write their own petition for not closing the community centre. This would practice their persuasive writing skills.
I would ask the children questions to generate their book talk. These questions could include "What did you think about the main character and why?" and "What were the problems in this story? How were they resolved?"

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The Elephant In The Room by Holly Goldberg Sloan

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The Elephant In The Room by Holly Goldberg Sloan

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Synopsis
This story focuses on Sila, a young girl whose parents are immigrants from Turkey. Her mother had to go back to Turkey to sort some legal paperwork and it has been 8 months since she left. Sila and her father meet various people throughout the story, including Gio, an old man who had won the lottery and needed the help of Sila's father to fix his truck. They all become friends, and Gio buys a circus elephant and bear off a travelling circus as he learns that Sila is obsessed with elephants. Sila is put into an experiment at school where she forms a bond with Mateo, who the school think has autism. They visit the elephant together and begin to work for Gio over the summer holidays. Mateo's mother is a lawyer and helps Sila's father to build a case up for her mother. They are quickly reunited, and the children work to find the elephant's mother, and the elephants become reunited too.
This book covers a range of topics including immigration, pay gap, death and bereavement, animal cruelty, autism and family separation.
Age/Phase
This book is definitely for children in upper KS2, I would say specifically year 6 due to the content of the book. It covers a lot of topics that I think children of this age should be aware of and is a good way to introduce these topics to them.
Type Of Read
This book could be used either as a class read or as a literacy objective. There are many things you could do with this book that reach across the curriculum.
Tasks/Activities/Questions
I would use this book across the curriculum. One idea is to use it as a PSHE book and discuss the topics included in the book. I would ask questions relating to these topics such as 'why do you think Sila's Mum has been stuck in Turkey for so long?' followed by 'do you think this is an issue for people in real life?'.
I could ask children to write a book review of this story. They could write about how it made them feel and what they learnt from the story. This would practice their writing skills and help them to learn about different forms of writing.
I could ask the children why they think the author has chosen to include the topics they have in the book. Hopefully this book would open the children's eyes to issues that are happening all the time. This book would also be useful if there was an autistic child in the class. It would help the other children to understand them see that differences can help us all learn together.

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Stella and The Seagull by Georgina Stevens and Izzy Burton

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Stella and The Seagull by Georgina Stevens and Izzy Burton

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Synopsis
Stella and The Seagull is a story about littering on beaches. Stella is a young girl who has a seagull friend who brings her a gift from the beach everyday and these gifts quickly turn into pieces of plastic litter which makes the seagull ill. Stella arranges a beach clean party and writes to her favourite chocolate bar company to see if they can help. In the end, the beach is clean, the seagull is better and the people in Stella's community are much more aware of the effects of litter on their beach.
Age/Phase
This book is for use with KS1. It has some lovely illustrations and the language used in the book is appropriate for children of this age. Although the message of the story is one that children of all ages need to know, this particular story would be best used in KS1.
Type of read
I would use this book as a whole class read with the intention of using it for a literacy objective. There are many things you could do using this book as a base and it can be used in a cross-curricular way too.
Tasks/Activities/Questions
To use this book as a literacy objective, children could create and label their own poster, like the one Stella makes in the story, advertising a beach clean or raising awareness of littering.
After reading the story, I would ask the children why they think the author has chosen to write about littering and what the effect was that it had on them.
To use this book across the curriculum, I would think about using it in geography. I would talk about the beaches in our area, showing pictures of them and talking about the litter we may see and what could happen to the wildlife on the beaches. This would link nicely to the first activity I mentioned of making a poster.

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How To Get Your Teacher Ready For School by Jean Reagan

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How To Get Your Teacher Ready For School by Jean Reagan

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Synopsis
This book is about when as class get a new teacher. It lists some things that children can do to help their teacher during different parts of the school year. There isn't really a story line as such but it does follow some of the events that children will experience.
Age/Phase
I would use this book in KS1. The language and pictures used in the book is suitable for this age group. I wouldn't use it in lower KS2 as the children would be too advanced for the book and it may feel 'babyish' to them.
Kind of Read
This book is a whole class read. I would use it at the start of a new school year to help children with the transition into a new year with a new teacher.
Questions/Activities/Tasks
One task the children could do to generate book talk is to come up with their own ideas of things they could do to get their teacher 'ready for school'. They could come up with ideas as a whole class and then create a poster individually.
To generate book talk, we could discuss how the book made us feel and why. Children may find this book funny as the concept of getting your teacher ready for school is not something they will have thought about. We could discuss our favourite parts and why they made us laugh.
A final task we could do with this book is talk about why we think the author has chosen to write a story like this. We could ask the children why they think the book could be helpful.

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This is a book in the Oxford Reading Tree series designed to support children with their reading.
Synopsis
The characters in the story go to the beach with their Dad and they fish for crabs. They catch a lot of crabs, causing their bucket to spill and the children wonder if their Dad gets nipped by the crabs.
Age/Phase
I would say that this book is aimed at reception children or those who are learning some of the very first sounds in phase 3 of the phonics sounds. The words in this book are simple and easily decodable for children in reception as the most advanced sound used is 'ch'.
Kind of Read
This book has been made with the sole purpose of being a guided reading book. It allows the adult to assess how well the children can blend, segment, and use the sounds in the book. However, children who are familiar with the words and sounds used in the book will be able to use it as an independent read too. This could be after they have finished all their work or as a reading for pleasure read.
Tasks/Activies/Questions
To generate book talk about this story, we could ask children to predict what they think will happen in the story based off the pictures provided.
As an activity, the children could come up with their own sentences to match the pictures, which could be put together to create a new story for these pictures.
As the children that will be reading this book will be 'early readers' we could ask children how we behave with books. Questions such as 'how do we hold a book so we don't crease the pages?' will encourage the children to be careful with the book and can help them to develop the skills they need to be able to hold and use a book properly.