A couple of days ago I blogged with some ideas about some fantastic children’s books around at the moment. They were all fiction, and I promised another blog on non-fiction alternatives.
Non-fiction books make great gifts for kids:
- Buying fiction for anyone, but particularly a child, can be risky if you don’t know them well or are unsure of their reading preferences. Non-fiction is safer.
- It’s more of a treat – non-fiction books are often a bit more expensive so perhaps less likely to be bought by their parents the rest of the year.
- They can be a great option for more reluctant readers who may feel daunted by lots of pages of plain text or the idea of sitting for long periods of time. Non-fiction can usually be dipped into for shorter periods and uses more pictures.
- Fiction is often a bit more disposable, perhaps discarded as a child matures onto a different reading level, but non-fiction is often seen as something more significant, to be kept.
There are some truly awesome non-fiction titles available to children. Here are a few that I would buy (am buying!)
Pre-school/Infants
Lift-the-Flap General Knowledge by Usborne. I love Usborne books – they are bright and colourful, with robust pages that can take a real hammering from little hands, and they have found a magic formula which appeals to children. Anything by Usborne is special and a good investment, and I love how you can buy an encyclopedia for every age group now. This one is designed to appeal to the youngest of readers (and their parents!).
What’s below by Clive Gifford and Kate McLelland is a gorgeous book examining what’s happening in the world beneath our feet. Pop-up books have come a long way – it’s now known as paper engineering! This book is a brilliant concept and will help young children to understand that there is activity and wonder beyond what is perceived by the senses.
Gallop! A Scanimation Picture Book by Rufus Seder. This has been around for a few years, but it’s such a wonderful book for very young children. The clever designs mean that the animals appear to move as you open each page. It will fascinate little ones.
Junior School age
Nadiya’s Bake Me A Story: Fifteen stories and recipes for children by Nadiya Hussein. My kids love baking and adore the Bake-Off and Nadiya’s victory in the competition last year was inspirational to many. Nadiya is a judge on the children’s Bake-Off on CBBC so kids will still be very familiar with her. This is a lovely book, and Nadiya is a lovely person who has qualities that naturally appeal to children. I love the idea that recipes here are combined with a quirky take on some classic fairy tales.
Maps by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielenski. I have bought this a couple of times for birthday gifts. It is large format and visually stunning, a book that will be treasured. Facts about the world are built into the gorgeous illustrations, so it’s educational in a very clever way!
The Usborne Creative Writing Book. Children are programmed to be creative, but modern life does not always allow them to exercise that muscle. Consequently, a blank page can be daunting for some children and they may need a little nudge or guidance to express their inner writer/artist/designer. There are a wide range of creative journals around just now; I bought this one because writing is the particular interest of the child I have in mind, but others are more gender-based or tailored towards different interests. They provide a great little tool for when kids say they are bored; boredom is good!
Secondary school age
Guinness World Records 2017: Gamer’s Edition. The Guinness World Record Book has been a staple for my son’s stocking since he was young, but at 15 he is no longer as interested as he once was. The Gamer’s Edition is a compromise, acknowledging his passion for computer gaming, whilst fulfilling his mother’s passion for the very un-tech world of books – sneaky!
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. Building on the success of his similarly titled books for adults, Covey has written a book for teenagers which encourages goal-setting, helps to build resilience and gives advice on managing relationships with family, friends, peers and authority figures. It is non-patronising and is written very much in the context of the digital age. Just don’t let them see you reading it!
Fun Science: A guide to life, the universe and why science is so awesome by Charlie McDonnell. Charlie is a highly successful YouTuber who vlogs about science, in the linguafranca of the young people. He has over 2 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and clearly has a great passion for his subject, which is always to be admired. The look and feel of the book is a world away from a textbook, so I doubt it’s going to help much with GCSE revision, but the enthusiasm is quite infectious, which is half the battle. I could see this appealing to 11-13 year olds.
I’d love to hear your ideas too – what books will you be buying for the children in your life this Christmas?
My children’s Christmas stockings would be incomplete without at least one book – whether they want one or not! – and they can be sure that this family tradition will continue even when they are older. Call it my personal crusade. I am also the book-giver for all the little people in my family; with all their senses under assault at this time of the year, I love the idea of giving something that can provide a little space and calm, and a retreat into their own imaginations.
This poem was first published in 1823, and is written by Clement C Moore. Despite its age, it is very accessible and is an absolute joy. We have been reading this to our kids on Christmas Eve since they were toddlers and they still look forward to it even though they are 10, 12 and 15! There are many versions available – ours is a rather quirky one (designed by William Wegman), where the models in the pictures are dogs dressed up! The pictures are key to the children’s enjoyment of it, so choose a version that is beautiful to look at and will become a family heirloom.
The book is set in Canada and the United States just 20 years after a catastrophic virus seemingly wipes out about 99% of humanity in a matter of days. The consequences of this are that, within a short space of time, electricity, running water and all the other basic services we take for granted, cease to exist. Vehicles are abandoned on motorways as their passengers leave their homes, to escape to…where? These people then die. Aircraft no longer fly and people are stranded pretty much wherever they happened to be at the moment the virus struck. And then mostly die. Whilst reading I recalled all those diseases in recent years that seemed to prefigure cataclysmic consequences (AIDS, Swine fever, SARS, Avian ‘flu, Ebola) fights which, for the most part, we eventually won; in this novel it is the disease (Georgian ‘flu) that prevails. And that’s scary.
The author has quite a task managing this complexity: each of the four characters’ stories are told separately and in a non-linear way, but they are like pieces of a jigsaw gradually being pieced together until the overall picture becomes clear. The novel jumps back and forth in time and I found this quite difficult to follow. Also, for me, the drawing together of the strands was a little too contrived; it just did not seem entirely plausible that a tiny number of survivors could have such a connected past. I think this has been my problem with science-fiction generally (but perhaps I haven’t read enough); I get that you have to suspend disbelief but it’s too much for me when that means suspending credibility.
There are so many books published that you may find people in your usual circle haven’t read the same things as you. But you will always find book review websites (whose authors would love you to post comments or engage in conversation, hint, hint!), or online reading communities, who have read your favourite most recent read. Sometimes, if I read a book I love (or loathe, though these are very few) I’m just bursting to talk about it with someone. I can always do that online.
I have to say, though, that it’s a totally gripping story. Roddy Macrae is the 17-year old son of a crofter in a small village in the Scottish Highlands. The book begins with five short police statements from different witnesses who later testify in Roddy’s trial. They recount the incident, in August 1869, when Roddy murdered three other residents of the village: Lachlan Mackenzie, the village Constable and long-time foe of Roddy’s father, Mackenzie’s teenage daughter, Flora, and his young son Donnie. These witnesses observed Roddy walking through the village covered in blood and in addition to their account of the events they saw, they make observations on his character and background. Thus, there is little doubt that Roddy carried out the triple murder and the scene is set for an account of how these events came to pass.
I have a friend with several shelves full of cookbooks and yet I know she rarely gets to use them. She and her partner both have full-time demanding jobs, three children and very busy lives, so why does she buy so many? I’m not quite as bad, my vice tends to be fiction, but we do also have quite a few cookery books, and yet we return to the same few recipes week in, week out.
This is a novel about race in modern America where the white population seems to feel it has solved the problem of racism. Firstly, it abolished slavery and then set in place several pieces of legislation to reinforce racial equality. Unfortunately, this has not addressed a fundamental problem of disparity of outcomes between whites and blacks (or people of colour more widely), in academic achievement, income, social status, crime, you name it, the statistics paint a troublesome picture. The thesis of the novel is that, whilst white America is slightly uncomfortable with the facts as they stand, they can point to a number of black high achievers (not least the first African-American President) as evidence that they have done all they could. The under-achievement of the rest can be put down to, for example, their own fecklessness or problems of character.
Julia's books 