Books (155)
with children’s storybook Ranjit's Rainbow Tigers by Tracy Kewley
with illustrations by Jessica Knight
The topic of Traders opens up an exotic world, rich in stories, ideas and exploration and our story Ranjit’s Rainbow Tigers, leads the way.
Children categories
11 best books (77)
We invited a panel of teachers, literacy and reading experts, book reviewers and editors – see right – to choose their top 11 best books for under 11s. From picture books to older fiction, together they make an exciting and varied list of recommended reads for children from three to 11.
Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present
by John Burningham (Walker)
A perfect festive read.
The Book With No Pictures
by BJ Novak (Puffin)
This book with no pictures needs no words!
Nothing
by Mick Inkpen (Hodder)
This sweet, sweet tale will tug at your heart strings but don’t hold that against it. It’s a beautiful story, you will love it.
Duck in the Truck
by Jez Alborough (HarperCollins)
More rhyming with this classic that’s great to read aloud.
Each Peach Pear Plum
by Allan and Janet Ahlberg (Puffin)
This is really the perfect book for reading to pre-schoolers. The pictures offer lots of opportunities for guessing what comes next and the introduction of familiar characters gives lots of opportunity to springboard into other books.
The Runaway Dinner
by Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman (Walker)
The Runaway Dinner has the most wonderful lyrical written style to it. Coupled with Bruce’s artwork which is quite child-like but utterly perfectly suited to the story, it’s a bit of an overlooked classic but so brilliant.
The Queen’s Knickers
by Nicholas Allan (Red Fox)
Fun, irreverent and cheeky – this and Cinderella’s Bum still make us laugh out loud (we only have to hear the name Dilys and we’re in fits of laughter). Books that make you guffaw and grin are always winners.
Troll and the Oliver
by Adam Stower (Templar)
I love children’s books that throw the rulebook away. There’s a fabulous twist to this tale that pops up three quarters of the way through that made Charlotte gasp. I can still picture her expression and we still love reading this, even now she’s older and loves chapter book stuff more than picture books.
The Owl Service
by Alan Garner (HarperCollins)
Another glorious book from junior school years, I read Alan Garner’s mysterious story again and again. The sort of book that has so many layers of mystery and suspense to it, that it still holds up when read as an adult.
The Giant Under the Snow
by John Gordon (Orion)
I think most adults have a ‘me’ book, the one that they’d say got them firmly into reading and this was mine. It’s dark, mysterious and quite menacing in places and I read it when I probably was far too young for it but it got me totally hooked on fantasy stuff.
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The ‘Claude’ series
by Alex T. Smith (Hodder)
Claude is funny, cheeky, always impeccably dressed and always has a nose for trouble (whether he’s causing it, or solving crimes along with his awesome sidekick Sir Bobblysock!). Alex T. Smith is a national children’s literary treasure!
My Big Shouting Day
by Rebecca Patterson (Jonathan Cape)
A laugh-out-loud book and I have to admit that we have read this many, many times after Charlotte has had a big shouting day of her own. Fabulous to read aloud (we loved reading this to a group of children at a bookstore reading once).
Black Dog
by Levi Pinfold (Templar)
Again a slightly dark tale, and a story of bravery. The big gigantic menacing dog grows smaller as the tiniest member of the family bravely leads it on a merry chase. Pinfold’s art in this is just utterly glorious.
The Bear Under the Stairs
by Helen Cooper (Corgi)
My daughter Charlotte loves the darker stuff and when I first read this to her, she actually didn’t like it at all as she found it too scary and disturbing. But of course the more we read it, the more she loved it and now it’s a firm favourite. The Bear isn’t really a horrid chap, he’s awesome!
Snow resources
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You can use The Christmas Wish ebook on your whiteboard, iPad or tablet computer.
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Our assembly closing thought helps us look at the different aspects of snow.
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Our downloadable snow fact cards will help start children off on their voyage of discovery.
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Our downloadable snow fact card templates make great class displays and are perfect for children to use when presenting their findings to the class.
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Our downloadable snow fact cards are ready for children to add their own researched facts.
Also available with text and images, text only and as
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Use this resource for highlighting geographical language. For printing or using on your whiteboard.
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Let the children demonstrate how well they’ve understood The Christmas Wish with these comprehension questions.
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Use this table to work out how much snow has fallen at a given time.
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Cut out the sentences and arrange the main events of The Christmas Wish in the correct order.
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Take a look at the techniques that Clare Bevan used when writing The Christmas Wish.
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Use this sheet to help children get to grips with sequencing in maths.
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Our downloadable snow fact cards are ready for children to add their own illustrations. Print out or use on tablet computers.
Also available with text
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Help children plan and write their own versions of The Christmas Wish using these storyboarding templates or get them to map the story following a
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Print-friendly The Christmas Wish: Poems and raps perfect hand-outs for learning off by heart.
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Let children's imaginations run riot with this activity that's perfect for discussing where ideas come from.
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Give the children time to think about what their Christmas wish would be.
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A perfect snowy game for reinforcing concepts of shape and size while exercising a bit of creativity along the way.
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A perfect snowy game for reinforcing concepts of shape and size while exercising a bit of creativity along the way.
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Our ‘Storytelling prompts’ for The Christmas wish are the perfect accompaniment to your storytelling lessons. These prompts come without text and keywords.
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Our ‘Storytelling prompts’ for The Christmas Wish are the perfect accompaniment to your storytelling lessons. These prompts come with keywords.
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Our ‘Storytelling prompts’ for The Christmas Wish are the perfect accompaniment to your storytelling lessons. These prompts come with keyword phrases from the story.
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Use the templates provided to create a board game based on the story of The Christmas Wish.
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The ‘Story sounds PDF slideshow’ includes some of the sounds that might feature in a stage show of The Christmas Wish.
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Use these images of the front and back cover of The Christmas Wish in conjunction with the ‘Explore the story’ lesson in the Snow topic.
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Reward your Early Years and KS1 storytellers with our The Christmas Wish themed certificate.
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Reward your KS2 storytellers with our The Christmas Wish themed certificate.
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Use these text-only resource sheets to explore the language of The Christmas Wish and examine some of the author’s writing techniques.
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Help the children to understand the story structure by asking them to create a story map for The Christmas Wish.
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Hear a slightly longer version of Captain Scott's wife being interviewed. This gives a taste of what it would have been like back in Great
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Our podcast for the Snow topic sees the wife of Captain Scott being interviewed and gives a taste of what it would have been
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These edited extracts are a challenging read and make for pretty grim reading but they could be tackled by older children with adult support.
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Use this text-only ebook to explore the language of The Christmas Wish and examine some of the author’s writing techniques.
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Use this game as a fun way to recall what children have learned about Captain Scott.
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Catch Clare Bevan's rhythm and rhyme bug with these perky poems. Perfect for chanting aloud, learning off by heart and as inspiration for the children's
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Ask the children to critique the storytellers in their class and give each one two things that they thought were great and one thing they
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Perfect for your Christmas production or scaled-down class assembly production, our editable playscript can be adapted for as few or as many children or you need
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A step-by-step guide to using The Christmas Wish .kmz file in Google Earth™.
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Get a goose-eye view with ‘The Christmas Wish Google Earth™ tour file’.
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Hone those colouring, cutting and sticking skills with these alphabet and festive symbol paper chains.
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Talk through the events in The Christmas Wish using this story map.
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