Christmas books for kids by pixabay.com

Kids' Picks

New and recommended books for children. May we suggest that the gift of reading is a wonderful thing?

Picture Books

Everyone’s Awake. Colin Meloy
The moon is full and shining brightly and, as often happens when this is the case, everyone in the household is having a sleepless night. They're all busy: Dad’s baking bread, Grandma’s doing needlework and the mice are playing cards. As the night progresses the activities get more and more crazy and outlandish. This book is full of very entertaining illustrations that add a further element to the story line.

Gaspard the Fox. Zeb Soanes
This is the story of an evening in the life of Gaspard the fox. Beautifully detailed and colourful illustrations provide a backdrop for the tale as Gaspard scrounges for food from canal boats, has adventures with new friends and reconnects with old ones. This is a feel-good story based on the life of a real fox and a list of foxy facts is included at the end of the book.

Image by: Rachel Kean


Fiction 6- 9

The Runaways. Kitty Crowther
Gottfried Junior’s cantankerous grandfather is not happy to be stuck in hospital and wishes he could visit the family home he built, just one last time. So together they hatch a cunning plan to bust him out and spend a night there together. This involves a lot of deceit and worry and takes much longer than expected. There’s a boat trip and a long uphill walk to cope with, which isn’t easy when your heart isn’t working properly. However, Grandpa gets his wish and the two survive the adventure. This is a lovely story.

The Train Mouse. Axel Scheffler
Stefan, also known as Nibbles, is an ordinary house mouse. He and his mouse family live in the basement of an old house in Munich where they are able to keep warm and be well fed. There are plenty of places to hide. The only problem is the neighbour’s cat, though he is so old that he hardly ever bothers chasing them. When their home is replaced by a modern building eveyrthing becomes difficult for the little family. Food becomes scarce and they are forced to leave home to find it. Somehow Stefan manages to take a train to Paris and this is the story of how he did it. This is a really lovely tale full of cute, colourful illustrations.

Image by: Rachel Kean


Fiction 10+

The Peacock Detectives. Carly Nugent
Cassie is an aspiring writer who spends a lot of time trying to find her neighbours’ peacocks. This begins as a story about her role as a peacock detective but soon becomes more involved as she relates her experience of events that are happening around her. For instance, she struggles with her changing relationship with her teenage sister, there are days when she doesn’t feel happy and there's a bully that hassles her at school. Luckily she has a good friend in Jonas, a nerdy but fun kid she met at school. They hunt for peacocks, share stories and interesting facts and provide great support for each other during times of trouble. This is a really good read and there is a lot of humour between the more serious bits.

Our Castle by the Sea. Lucy Strange
Petra has lived an idyllic life. She and her family live next to a lighthouse near the white cliffs of Dover and her father is the lighthouse keeper there. One day, however, the war between England and Germany starts to impact dramatically upon her: because Petra’s mother is from Germany she is taken away from the family and placed in an intern camp. From there things spiral downwards as it becomes clear that there is a spy at work in the nearby village. To add to this stress her older sister has started to behave oddly and has been disappearing in the early hours of the mornings. Is she the spy? Does she have a boyfriend? This is a real page-turner and highly recommended.

Image by: Rachel Kean