Category: Kids books

  • Wilding

    Wilding

    By Isabella Tree Hardback, £20 Wilding is a stunning illustrated guide to bringing wildlife back, and is suitable for all ages.  A combination of photos and gorgeous illustrations from Riverside favourite Angela Harding makes this a proper reference guide as well as a joy to sit down with. Telling the story of the rewilding project…

  • Big by Vashti Harrison

    Big by Vashti Harrison

    By Vashti Harrison Paperback, £8.99 A gorgeous picture book from Little Leaders author Vashti Harrison.  A little girl is happy with her body and herself, until people start to tell her that she’s too big… As Harrison explains: “In childhood, big is good.  Big is impressive, aspirational.  But somewhere along the way, the world begins…

  • Jamie

    Jamie

    By L D Lapinski Paperback, £7.99 I was eagerly awaiting this 2023 release: a middle grade book with a non-binary main character fighting for their rights? Sign me up! I am most happy to report: the book lived up to my hype. Our charming protagonist is at a crossroads. Having come out as non-binary to…

  • The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

    Hardback, £9.99, Egmont ‘Classics’ Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s classic The Wind in the Willows was republished last year in a beautiful hardback edition by Egmont ‘Classics’, complete with an appendix of activities for children, a well-conceived glossary (as some of Grahame’s words are challenging) and E. H. Shepherd’s original and unforgettable pen illustrations. I cannot…

  • I am Henry Finch, by Viviane Schwarz and Alexis Deacon

    Paperback, Walker Books, £6.99, out now A deserved winner of the excellent Little Rebels Award for radical children’s books (https://littlerebelsaward.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/alexis-deacon-invites-children-to-come-up-with-an-alternative-to-capitalism/ ), this beautiful picture book made me roar with laughter. Henry Finch is a small bird who comes to realise that he exists, and thinks, and that he can use his thoughts to tackle THE…

  • The Fault in our Stars

    The Fault in our Stars tells the story of a 16-year-old girl called Hazel who has cancer. While attending a support group in a local church, she meets a handsome boy called Augustus Waters and her story begins to change. This is one of my favourite books of all time as it is not your…

  • Puffin Classics

    It has been said here before and it will doubtless be said again, but it is nice when books look nice, when a real effort is made with their appearance.  Penguin, who like their reissues, seem to be keen on this idea too (also as we have said here before), and have of late been…

  • His Dark Materials: Philip Pullman

    Hardly a hot new release, and certainly not something that could have been easily missed in the last 15 or so years, but attention must be drawn to an all new Everyman Classic Library edition of everyone’s favourite bestselling atheist-minded fantasy kids epic. Like everything produced by the Everyman Classic Library it’s a handsome, perfectly…

  • 50 Things to Spot in London

      Usborne, £5.99 A pack of pocket-sized cards to help recognise and learn all about 50 of London’s famous landmarks.  Each card has a detailed illustration, with information, facts and statistics on reverse.