Welcome back to the first Friday Library Recommendations of the school year! Congratulations to everyone who completed the Summer Reading Challenge.  On Wednesday, it was Roald Dahl Day, so this week, I have picked books that have the same dark humour and dastardly villains.

Firstly, I have The Terribly Friendly Fox by Susannah Lloyd and Ellie Snowdon. 

When Gerald the fox turns up at the Annual Woodland Creatures’ Ball, a few of the guests are a little concerned. After all, they’ve heard some rather alarming rumours about foxes and their appetites. But they needn’t have worried – Gerald is a vegetarian fox, and the life and soul of the party! In fact, he’s terribly friendly.

A darkly funny story, with artwork from the creator of Great Bunny Bakes, Ellie Snowdon.

Next, for newly confident readers, PESTS by Emer Stamp is the first is a fabulously funny series. When the lights go off, the PESTS come out! Meet Stix, the tiny but heroic mouse who might be living behind your washing machine. But is he naughty enough to join the PESTS?

Stix is the size of an egg cup, can jump the width of a dog’s bottom, and LOVES cheese. That’s because Stix is a mouse. He probably lives behind your washing machine, but you wouldn’t know it, because his grandma taught him to always stay out of trouble and never let the humans know he’s there. But now Stix has stumbled across P.E.S.T.S. – the Peewit Educatorium for Seriously Terrible Scoundrels – in the basement of his building, and along with a whole host of new pesty friends (and enemies), he’s about to rip up Grandma’s rule book and make a real pest of himself…

For Year 3 and up, I’ve picked The Magic Place by Chris Wormell, a thrilling, moving and funny adventure about looking for the most magical place of all – home.

From her cellar bedroom, Clementine dreams of a magic place. And she’s determined to find it one day. But first she must escape from her wicked aunt and uncle and from the Great Black City. With the help of her best friend, Gilbert, a very clever cat, she sets off on an epic journey that just might make her dreams come true.

And finally, one of my favourite children’s series, Beetle Boy by M.G. Leonard. 

Darkus can’t believe his eyes when a huge insect drops out of the trouser leg of his horrible new neighbour. It’s a giant beetle – and it seems to want to communicate. But how can a boy be friends with a beetle? And what does a beetle have to do with the disappearance of his dad and the arrival of Lucretia Cutter, with her taste for creepy jewellery?

Full of charm and quirkiness, with characters to both love and loathe, M.G. Leonard creates a tale of mystery, adventure and beetles with a side order of slapstick that just cries out for one more chapter, which is how I finished it in a day!

Happy reading!

It’s the final theme challenge of the year, and Reception have chosen food. Grab your (healthy) snacks and get ready to read some delicious books!

Food Fight by Alex Latimer is a laugh-out-loud picture book about conflict resolution as we join Grape and Mushroom on their mission for peas on Earth.

The Fruits and the Vegetables have been fighting FOREVER! But best friends Grape and Mushroom decide it’s time for things to change. They meet in secret and hatch a plan to end the fighting once and for all. And so, they set off on an epic journey to the very top of the fridge to ask the legendary Wise Old Cheese for help-that is, if he even exists. Join these tiny peace envoys on their courageous mission as they eventually find the solution in an unexpected place…

Highly illustrated throughout, Bad Food: Game Of Scones by Eric Luper and Doodle Boy is a laugh out loud epic tale of a fight for power as the heat rises in Belching Walrus Elementary.

Somewhere deep within the walk-in pantry at Belching Walrus Elementary lives an array of different foods that live in harmony. There are baskets of fruits and veggies, a cooler filled with chocolate milks and apple juices, and a freezer for ice-creams and yet-to-be-nuked chicken fingers.

One day, the Supplies from the Principal’s office show up and insist on sharing the coolness of the cooler. Their ruler is a ruler (pun intended) named Baron von Lineal. The Baron argues that they work harder than anyone in Belching Walrus Elementary while food just sits around. As such, the residents of the pantry have no choice but to open their doors. Anyhow, there’s plenty of room in the cooler for everyone, right? Wrong! The Baron and his cohorts take over the pantry in no time!

To free their fellow food, it’s up to three young heroes Slice, Scoop and Totz to venture out of the pantry and foil the Baron’s plan for good.

There is a special kind of everyday magic in Bridget Vanderpuff and The Baked Escape by Martin Stewart. Love and hope triumph over misery in this riotously funny, laugh-out-loud, hug of a book.

Bridget Baxter is the very last orphan at the Orphanage for Errant Childs, left at the mercy of the awful Miss Acrid and her foul-smelling fish sandwiches. Miss Acrid’s mission is to make Bridget’s life a misery. But Bridget is more than a match for her.

When kindly Mr Vanderpuff arrives at the Orphanage in search of a child to care for, Bridget thinks her luck has finally turned. Mr Vanderpuff is the village baker, and his shop is a world of wonders. But they soon discover that Bridget is absolutely terrible at baking. When Miss Acrid returns for the ultimate revenge, Bridget must open the Locked and Secret Door, navigate Miss Acrid’s spiderweb of booby traps and use her unique baking skills to save herself – and Mr Vanderpuff – from certain disaster.

Join Bridget as she dons her chef whites and gets the kwassongs at the ready… Baking isn’t such a piece of cake.

Midnight Feasts: Tasty Poems chosen by A.F. Harrold, and illustrated by Katy Riddell will have the poetry and food fans in your life licking their lips as this scrumptious illustrated hardback contains over 50 poems about every type of food imaginable!

Food is the one thing that unites us all – across time, nations and peoples. From chocolate, rice pudding and sandwiches to breakfast in bed, marmalade in the bath and the fruit of a mythical jelabi tree, in Midnight Feasts A.F. Harrold brings together a wonderful and diverse collection of poems to tickle your taste buds.

Poets include Ian McMillan, Brian Patten, Choman Hardi, Imtiaz Dharker, William Carlos Williams, Salena Godden, Joseph Coelho, Sabrina Mahfouz, Lewis Carroll, W.S. Gilbert and A.E. Housman, as well as A.F. Harrold himself.

Happy reading!

The Summer Reading Challenge, presented by The Reading Agency and funded by Arts Council England, is the UK’s biggest reading for pleasure programme for primary school aged children. Each year the Challenge motivates children to read for pleasure over the summer holidays. Children can sign up for free at a participating library or take part online on the official Summer Reading Challenge website!

From Saturday 8 July children aged 4 – 11 can come and collect their Summer Reading Challenge free fun collector pack, stickers and goodies at a Coventry Library.  At two further visits to libraries through the summer children can collect more stickers to complete their Challenge.  Children don’t need to be big readers to enter the Challenge.

This year, The Reading Agency is partnering with national children’s charity the Youth Sport Trust for Ready, Set, Read!, a sports and games themed Challenge that aims to keep children’s minds and bodies active over the summer break. Find out more here.

I have chosen some of my favourites from this year’s collection.

You’re So Amazing by James & Lucy Catchpole and Karen George is a groundbreaking picture book exploring how we respond to disability.

When people meet Joe, they often treat him as Amazing Joe or Poor Joe. But can’t he just be … Joe?

One-legged Joe is ‘amazing’. He knows this because wherever he goes people always tell him he’s amazing. Amazing for sliding down the slide, for kicking a ball … even walking to get an ice cream, or even just eating an ice cream. Of course, being Amazing Joe is better than being Poor Joe…

Call The Puffins by Cath Howe is a wonderfully warm, witty book to kick off this gorgeous series for younger readers, whether reading at bedtime with a grown up or as an early independent chapter book. Teamwork, resilience and playing to your strengths are all key themes as Muffin gets to grips with life in the colony.

Welcome to the island of Egg where a group of young puffins are training to join a search and rescue team. Meet Muffin who is following in her dad’s footsteps and anxious not to let him down. Meet Tiny whose eyesight is a challenge which won’t stop him for long. And meet Forti who seems so over-confident but is really desperate to impress. Along with their fellow recruits, the puffins must work together to help all the birds on the island.

Johnny Ball Accidental Football Genius by Matt Oldfield is a laugh out loud, relatable tale from kick off to the final whistle.

Johnny Ball LOVES football. He loves reading about it, talking about it, watching it – and he loves playing it too. He’s a good player, but not quite good enough to make the Tissbury Primary School team for the super-huge Under-11s County Cup. But never mind, because their clueless coach, Mr Mann, has a special role for Johnny: ASSISTANT MANAGER! With only Grandpa George’s old scarf, a ‘pocket’ notebook and his brilliant football brain, can Johnny lead the Tissbury Primary team all the way to County Cup glory?

And finally, I was delighted to see Sunny by Jason Reynolds on the list – I am a huge fan of the whole Track Series, which starts with Ghost, about four children from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school running team – a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose and a lot to prove. Not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is my favourite of the four books with a rhythmic quality that at times reads like a verse novel.

When Sunny stops running in the middle of a race, Coach asks him what he wants to do instead. His answer is dance, but you can’t be on a track team and dance… can you? With his dad’s expectations weighing down on him, Sunny finally finds a track event that feels like dancing. But as he practices for this new event, can he let go of everything that’s been eating him up inside?

Happy reading!