40 of the best new fiction titles for your primary school Library, aimed at years 5 and 6.
The Must Read Booklist is our annual selection of the best fiction for primary schools chosen by librarians from the Schools Library Service and primary and secondary schools.
Titles from the 2015 Teen and Primary lists will be chosen for the Book Award Shortlist in July. Don’t forget to register for this event!
The booklist represents a selection of the best new fiction first published in paperback within the last year, and aims to cover as diverse a range of subjects, genres, authors and interests as possible.
A set of posters and bookmarks for the booklist will be sent to all subscribing primary schools in May 2015.
Please contact the library for any further information about the booklist or to request more posters/ bookmarks (subscribing schools only)
View the full list
| Baisch, Milena | Anton and Piranha | Anton is planning to spend his holiday with his grandparents in the pool. But then disaster strikes . . . their holiday camp DOES NOT HAVE A POOL! Instead it has a lake – a lake filled with murky, slimy, dark, disgusting sludge – and Anton just can’t understand why everybody else is so happy to dive-bomb and swim in it all day long. |
| Black, Holly | Doll Bones | A chilling ghost story – Poppy’s old china doll is telling her that she is made from the ground-up bones of a murdered girl, that her spirit is trapped inside and must be released… |
| Boyne, John | Stay Where You Are and Then Leave | The day the First World War began, Alfie Summerfield’s father promised he wouldn’t go away to fight – but he broke that promise the very next morning. Four years on, his letters have stopped, and all Alfie knows is that he’s far away on a special, secret mission, but the truth is harsher… |
| Carroll, Emma | The Girl Who Walked on Air | Louie, abandoned at Chipchase’s Travelling Circus as a baby, dreams of becoming a ‘Showstopper’, but Mr Chipchase keeps her tucked away in the ticket booth. No death-defying stunts for her. But Louie has been secretly practising the tightrope. She just needs to be given the chance to shine. |
| Cousins, Dave | Charlie Merrick’s Misfits | Charlie wants his team to play in the exhibition matches at the World Cup tournament, but there’s one problem. He’s got to prove that North Star deserve a place at the tournament and that’s not easy when your team are rubbish at football! |
| Cowell, Catherine | Ernest Simba | Liwida the lizard is Ernest’s best and only real friend as he grows up, disabled, in the African orphanage where he was abandoned as a baby, and Liwida can do amazing things… |
| Creech, Sharon | The Boy on the Porch | John and Marta find a strange boy asleep on their porch with a short note in his pocket “plees taik kair of Jacob.” He doesn’t speak, has a knack with the animals and loves to paint, but where has he come from and to whom does he belong? |
| DiCamillo, Kate | Flora & Ulysses : the Illuminated Adventures | The squirrel never saw it coming – the vacuum cleaner, that is. As for Flora Belle Buckman, she has read every issue of the comic book ‘Terrible Things Can Happen to You!’ so she is just the right person to save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses the squirrel has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight and misspelled poetry… |
| Elson, Jane | A Room Full of Chocolate | Grace’s life changes when she is sent to live with her grumpy granddad in the country while her mother is in hospital. At her new school she becomes the bullies’ latest target. Then she meets rainbow-girl Megan and her pig Claude and they hatch a plan to run away that involves Claude, chocolate Easter eggs and a mad dash home to London. |
| Federle, Tim | Five, Six, Seven, Nate | Armed with a one-way ticket to New York City, small-town theatre geek Nate is off to start rehearsals for E.T.: The Broadway Musical. It’s everything he ever practised his autograph for! But as thrilling as Broadway is, rehearsals are nothing like Nate expects: full of intimidating child stars, cut-throat understudies, and a director who can’t even remember Nate’s name. |
| Fischel, Emma | Witchworld | The witches of Witchworld have no need for wands or broomsticks, not when they have Spellsticks and Skyriders instead. And no one has a cauldron anymore, just a cupboard full of Potions2Go. So when Flo’s old-fashioned grandmother flies into town to warn them of a Ghoul attack, no-one believes her – after all, Ghouls died out years ago and she still rides around on a broomstick, for goodness’ sake! |
| Gaiman, Neil; Riddell, Chris | Fortunately, the Milk | You know what it’s like when your mum goes away on a business trip and Dad’s in charge. She leaves a really, really long list of what he’s got to do, and the most important thing is DON’T FORGET TO GET THE MILK. Unfortunately, Dad forgets, so the next morning he has to go to the corner shop, and this is the story of why it takes him a very, very long time to get back. |
| Gayton, Sam | Lilliput | 200 moons after leaving Lilliput, Gulliver has returned to take back proof of his amazing travels – proof in the form of Lilly. Three inches tall and now imprisoned in a bird cage in London, she dreams of escaping back home. |
| Gemin, G. R. | Cowgirl | If Gemma ever stops to think about it, she knows hiding a herd of cows on a housing estate is a bit mad, but how else can she help Cowgirl keep them from the abattoir? |
| Gilman, David | Monkey and Me | Beanie wears a beanie because his hair fell out during his treatment for leukaemia. Much as he wants to get better, he doesn’t think this should be at the expense of experiments on animals such as the monkey he finds at the deserted house. |
| Gleitzman, Morris | Extra Time | Introducing a marauding fluffy mascot, a wise-as-an-owl landlady and a WAG called Terrine, this is an irresistible story of how one boy helps stressed-out top footballers find the fun in a kickabout again, with help from his fearsome agent (and little sister), Bridie. |
| Griffiths, Mark | The Impossible Boy | Shielding her eyes against the intense afternoon sunlight the young girl stared in astonishment at the mayor and wondered why no-one had noticed the ghost standing behind him….so begins an impossible investigation for Geek Inc! |
| Hart, Caryl; Smith, Alex T. | The Road to Fame and Fortune | Foxy DuBois is on the road to fame and fortune. Only one thing stands in her way – Alphonso the Alligator! Will gullible Alphonso go along with Foxy’s cunning plan? |
| Hartnett, Sonya | The Children of the King | The wealthy Lockwood family flee London as bombs start to fall during the Blitz and take an evacuee, twelve-year-old May, with them to remote Heron Hall. The children discover two strange boys hiding in the ruins of an old castle and every night Uncle Peregrine tells the tale of the two princes in the tower. Their stories become entwined in an extraordinary adventure. |
| Hill, Kirkpatrick | Bo at Ballard Creek | Two gold miners ‘rescue’ little Bo from an orphanage, and take her up north with them, bringing her up in an Inuit village in Alaska. |
| Ho-Yen, Polly | Boy in the Tower | Ade loves living at the top of a tower block. But one day, other tower blocks start falling down around them and strange, menacing plants begin to appear. Now their tower isn’t safe anymore. Ade and his mum are trapped and there’s no way out… |
| Irving, Ellie | The Mute Button | Anthony loves his family, but they can be very very noisy. He’s already got two brothers, a sister and a cat, and then another older brother turns up and things are going to get even noisier – so Ant starts a silent protest to try to get some attention, but what will it take for him to start speaking again? |
| Johnson, Pete | The Vampire Bewitched | Something has happened to half-vampire Marcus following a mysterious accident. He’s lost his memory and cannot remember anything of his life as a vampire hunter… |
| Laird, Elizabeth | The Fastest Boy in the World | Solomon loves to run and dreams of winning a gold medal, but when his grandfather collapses, Solomon is the only one who can run for help. Can he last the distance? |
| Lee, Julia | The Dangerous Discoveries of Gully Potchard | Gully Potchard never means to cause any trouble, but when bully Nathan Boldree involves him in a scheme for kidnapping people’s dogs and holding them to ransom, Gully is quickly caught up in mischief and skulduggery. Can Gully sort things out and become a hero after all? |
| Lester, Cas | Harvey Drew and the Bin Men from Outer Space | Harvey’s spaceship is on a collision course with the Toxic Spew – an intergalactic waste disposal ship – are they heading for mutliple spaceship pile-up on hyperspaceway B16…? |
| McCombie, Karen | The Girl Who Wasn’t There | Maisie doesn’t believe in ghosts, but when she starts a new school there are rumours and she spots a pale shape in the art-room window. Together with new friend Kat they try to learn more about the ghost. Then Maisie finds some very old photos of someone who looks exactly like Kat….. |
| McKay, Hilary | Binny for Short | Max came into Binny’s life and went again within a few short months and despite all the other dreadful things happening in her life, she can’t forget the adorable little black and white dog – will she ever see him again? |
| Mitchelhill, Barbara | Billy’s Blitz | Life is London in wartime is not much fun – friends have been evacuated, and rationing means no treats -but in September 1940, things are going to get a whole lot worse… |
| Montgomery, Ross | The Tornado Chasers | Safety is very important to Owen’s parents – which is why they moved to Barrow where children have to wear bright yellow at all times and are never allowed outside except to go to school. To relieve the boredom, Owen and his friends form the Tornado Chasers. Their mission: to get as close to a Grade 5 tornado as possible… |
| O’Shea-Meddour, Wendy | Wendy Quill is Full Up of Wrong | It is very tricky to get things right all of the time – as Wendy Quill knows all too well…. this is her diary of her slightly awful accidents. |
| Ross, Tony | A Word in Your Ear | A collection of surprising tales, each one with a twist. From bullfighters to ghosts, sea captains to uninvited friends, there are plenty of mysterious characters and curious places to keep you on the edge of your seat. |
| Slater, Kim | Smart | Kieran has skills – not socialising or getting on with people skills, but drawing and detective skills – which ought to come in handy when a homeless man is murdered down by the canal… |
| Sparkes, Ali | Destination Earth | Lucy is the only survivor from another planet. Her spaceship is programmed to take her to Earth, but can she convince the earthlings that she’s a real teenager and start her new life? Except a killer alien has hitched a lift, and the whole human race is in danger. |
| Stead, Rebecca | First Light | Peter accompanies his parents on an expedition to Greenland. In another world, there is Thea, who lives with her family in hiding under the ice, unable to go above it. When Thea and Peter meet, two worlds will collide, and a host of secrets will be released. |
| Stewart, Paul; Riddell, Chris | Scavenger: Zoid | Fourteen year-old York is a Scavenger on board an intergalactic spaceship looking for a new Earth. The ship also contains the most advanced Zoids ever created, who have rebelled, wiping out most of the crew. York has to risk life and limb to destroy the Zoids and scavenge the parts necessary to keep their human technology running. |
| Sutcliffe, William | Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom | It all starts to look very exciting when Armitage Shank’s Impossible Circus rolls into Hannah’s boring town, but no one realises just how nasty and slippery Armitage can be… |
| Walter, Jon | Close to the Wind | Nine-year-old Malik and his grandfather have lost nearly everything to the war. Struggling to survive, they attempt to flee their country on the last ship out… |
| Westcott, Rebecca | Dandelion Clocks | Liv is just a normal 11-year-old with a love for photography and hate for moronic Louise at school. But her life is turned upside down as the learns the truth about her mum’s illness. |
| Williamson, Lara | A Boy Called Hope | Dan wants money, a new sister who doesn’t say horrible things, a swimming pool of chocolate cereal and to go to a school for wizards instead of his own boring school. But most of all, he wants a Dad… |
Poster and bookmark design by Angela Wraight
