Piers Torday
Piers Torday is the author of the award-winning trilogy The Last Wild and many other children’s books.
Texts & Authors
Authors in the Spotlight
Authors stop by to share their thoughts and free classroom posters convey these.
Sue Hardy-Dawson
Sue Hardy-Dawson is an award winning poet and an illustrator.
Vashti Hardy
Vashti Hardy is a writer of children’s books. Vashti has a special interest in children’s writing, especially free-writing.
Elen Caldecott
Elen Caldecott is a children’s author and was highly commended in the PFD Prize for Most Promising Writer for young people.
Catherine Fisher
Catherine Fisher is an acclaimed poet and author of children’s fiction.
Liz Brownlee
Liz Brownlee is a poet and children’s poet with work in over 80 children’s poetry anthologies in the UK.
Chitra Soundar
Chitra Soundar is an internationally published, award-winning author of over 40 books for children
Sally Gardner
Sally Gardner is a multi award-winning novelist who has sold over 2 million books in the UK.
John Dougherty
John Dougherty is a former teacher and now author of the Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face series, the Zeus stories and many more.
Karl Nova
Karl Nova’s debut book “Rhythm And Poetry” was declared winner of the CLPE, CLiPPA 2018 Poetry award
Tom Palmer
Tom Palmer is the author of 50 books, most of them for children. Armistice Runner, won the UK Children’s Book Award in 2019.
Maz Evans
Maz Evans debut novel Who Let the Gods Out was selected as the Waterstone’s Children’s Book of the Month
Lisa Thompson
Lisa’s first novel, The Goldfish Boy, was one of the biggest selling debut books of 2017
Jo Cotterill
Jo Cotterill is a multi-award-winning author with over forty books for children, including new novel ‘Jelly’
Hilary Robinson
The award winning author of over 50 books for children, including the much loved Mixed Up Fairy Tales.
David Lucas
A new primary school teacher, David Lucas has created 15 children’s books as an author and illustrator.
Morag Hood
Morag Hood is an award-winning picture book author and illustrator from Edinburgh.
AF Harrold
A.F. Harrold is a poet and performer who writes for children and adults. He loves working with talented illustrators.
Joseph Coelho
Our featured author is a poet and children’s author. His latest poetry collection celebrates his childhood love of nature.
Gill Lewis
Gill Lewis a multi-award winning children’s author who writes stories about the natural world and our human relationship with it
Nicola Davies
Author of fiction, non fiction and poetry, she won the first SLA award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Non Fiction.
Isabel Thomas
This month we are delighted to profile the engaging work of Isabel Thomas who has written more than 150 books for young people.
Emma Carroll
The author of Strange Star, the Financial Times Book of 2016, Secrets of a Sun King and many more
Ross Montgomery
The author of Max and the Millions and Perijee and Me answers our fiendish questions!
SF Said
Varjak Paw author SF Said talks books!
Nicky Singer
Author Nicky Singer lets us into her world of reading
Mini Grey
Creator of the Bad Bunnies talks to us about books!
MG Leonard
The author of the Beetle series tells us about her favourite books
Top Texts
Every month a guest recommends three books
Top Texts for February 2021
Karen Napier, CEO of The Reading Agency shares some of her favourite books.
Top Texts for January 2021
Kiran Satti selects some empowering and inspiring read aloud books for KS1 and EYFS
Top Texts for December
John Murray chooses text to make you think, to make you smile and to laugh your socks off.
Top Texts for November
Annie Everall selects text that brings stories, poetry and illustration to life.
Top Texts for October
October’s favourite read aloud books are chosen by Sarah Paxton, lead of the New Wave English Hub based in Hackney.
Top Texts for September
This month’s favourite read aloud recommendations are made by Sonia Thompson, Head Teacher at St Matthew’s C.E. Teaching and Research School.
Top Texts for August
Great read aloud choices here for older readers, our top texts for August have been chosen by Fiona Evans, who is Director of Programmes at the National Literacy Trust.
Top Texts for July
Karl Duke selects some high quality texts to promote reading to inspire learning for all.
Top Texts for June
Richard Charlesworth introduces picture books and graphic novels that create an emotional response in the reader.
Top Texts for May
Carol Carter maintains her passion for building reading communities and finding the right book to make every child a reader
Top Texts for April
Miranda McKearney of EmpathyLab selects texts that enable children and young people to develop the skills that build empathy.
Top Texts for March
Nicki Cleveland has revolutionised the way the teaching staff at Cannon Park Primary think about Reading for Pleasure, it is now at the forefront of the school’s ethos
Top Text for February
Bob Cox seeks to support schools’ work on using quality texts for quality writing.
Top texts for January
Caroline Sence of charity ‘Read for Good’ recommends entertaining, diverse and accessible picture books for all ages.
Top texts for December
This month’s selections are drawn from the School Library Association’s Information Book Awards, and chosen by Alison Tarrant.
Top texts for November
Chosen by Diane Leedham, these texts are aimed at older readers and reflect a wider awareness of diversity.
Top Texts for October
Using a theme of “old but gold” our top texts for October have been chosen by Ben Harris.
Top texts for September
September’s top texts have been chosen by Susannah Herbert, Executive Director of the Forward Arts Foundation.
Top Texts for August
This month’s top texts have been chosen by Ben King, founder of the Teacher Book Awards. He has chosen three fiction books, each with a ghostly theme.
Top Texts for July
This month’s Top Texts have been chosen by Joy Court, Reviews Editor for The School Librarian journal. She has chosen three thought provoking and enjoyable books that will stimulate much conversation!
Top Texts for June
This months texts have been chosen by Nikki Gamble, Director of Just Imagine. She has selected non-fiction that is both lyrical and informative, and above all really engaging.
Top Texts for May
This month’s Top Texts have been chosen by Emily Drabble, head of children’s book promotion and prizes at the reading for pleasure charity BookTrust. Some thought provoking choices here, including Ghost!.
Top Texts for April
This month’s texts have been chosen by Morag Styles who retired in 2014 as Professor of Children’s Poetry at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge and is an Emeritus Fellow of Homerton College.
Top Texts for March
This months Top Texts have been chosen by Jane Bednall, a former teacher and Deputy Head.