From Neverland to Hogwarts via Middle-earth

Read for My School, the brand new national schools reading competition from The Pearson Foundation and Booktrust, with support from the Department for Education has announced the 90 titles that children will be encouraged to read from 21 January to 22 March 2013.

The 42 online titles donated by Pearson, Penguin and DK will be available to read for free on the Read for My School website and include Michael Rosen’s recent biography of Roald Dahl, as well as titles by Eoin Colfer, Jeremy Strong and Dahl himself.

The 48 Recommended Reads, selected by a panel of teachers, librarians, booksellers and children’s book reviewers, include favourites from Michael Morpurgo, Shirley Hughes and J K Rowling, along with a host of new talent.

During the competition, children will also be encouraged to redeem their World Book Day tokens and read one of the four books published for the 2013 promotion that are suitable for nine to 11 year-olds, including titles by Lauren Child, Anthony Horowitz, Liz Pichon and Tony Robinson. Read for My School whole-heartedly supports World Book Day as a wonderful celebration of books and reading.

Aimed at children in years 5 and 6 in its first year, Read for My School is being offered for free to all primary schools in England. The competitive element of the programme is designed to be fun and motivate children of all abilities with a variety of interests to read for pleasure. It will also give children the opportunity to read their way to rewards for themselves and their schools.

All schools that sign up to the scheme at www.readformyschool.co.uk will be entered into a prize draw to receive a substantial donation of books drawn from a pot of 100,000 titles provided by Pearson, Penguin and DK. An ‘early bird’ offer is available to all teachers, literacy coordinators and librarians who register their school by midday on Wednesday 19 December. One lucky winner will be selected via a prize draw to receive an Amazon Kindle e-reader. Terms and conditions apply.

Children’s author and Read for My School Spokesperson Jeremy Strong said:

Read for My School is a terrific opportunity for schools and children throughout the UK to discover the excitement and pleasure of top quality writing from dozens of Britain’s best children’s authors. A library of Pearson titles will be available to children online over a period of two months in early 2013 and 100,000 real books will be distributed to winning schools and individual children. I am delighted that some of my books are included in the list. In addition, the Recommended Reads contain superb titles from a range of publishers across eight genres.

It is a well-established fact that regular reading enriches and increases a child's chance of success later on in life. I hope that every single school in the UK will sign up and take part in the initiative to help their children to reap the benefits of becoming enthusiastic, life-long readers—a  passion that will excite, delight, educate and help develop their understanding of the world we live in.

Find out more about Read for My School

The selected titles:

The eight categories are designed to introduce children to a wide a variety of genres through the competition. They are: Historical Hits (tales to take you back in time); It’s a Mystery (thrillers, whodunits and spooky stories); Keep it Real (books to fill your brain with facts); Laugh out Loud (rip-roaringly funny reads); Out of this World (titles with a touch of sci-fi, fantasy or magic); Stars of the Screen (books featuring characters from film and TV); Thrill Seekers (amazing adventure stories); and Wild Thing (tales of animal antics).

The selected titles are:

1. Historical Hits

Online titles
•    Blood Red Horse by K M Grant (Penguin)
•    Dead Sick: Incredible Medicine from History by Haydn Middleton (Pearson Education)
•    The Great Escape by Megan Rix (Penguin)
•    Kura's Story by Paul Mason (Pearson Education)
•    Once by Maurice Gleitzman (Penguin)

Recommended Reads
•    The Adventures of the New Cut Gang by Philip Pullman (David Fickling)
•    Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes (Walker)
•    A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo (HarperCollins)
•    Polly's March by Linda Newbery (Usborne)
•    Soldier Dog by Sam Angus (Macmillan)
•    The Thieves of Ostia by Caroline Lawrence (Orion)

2. It’s a Mystery

Online titles
•    Finlay and the Bogeyman by Steve Alton (Pearson Education)
•    Foul Play by Tom Palmer (Penguin)
•    Ghost Detectives: The Lost Bride by Emily Mason (Penguin)
•    How to be a Detective by Paul Mason (Pearson Education)
•    The Mystery of the Poisoned Pudding/Missing Finger by Josh Lacey (Pearson Education)
•    Scarper Jack by Christopher Russell (Penguin)

Recommended Reads
•    Laura Marlin Mysteries 1: Dead Man's Cove by Lauren St John (Orion)
•    The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling)
•    The Raven Mysteries 1: Flood and Fang by Marcus Sedgwick (Orion)
•    Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans (Doubleday)
•    Spy Dog by Andrew Cope (Puffin)
•    Tales from Schwartzgarten 1: Osbert the Avenger by Christopher William Hill (Orchard)
     
WORLD BOOK DAY TITLE: The Diamond Brothers in... Two of Diamonds by Anthony Horowitz (Walker)

3. Keep it Real

Online titles
•    101 Things to Do Before Secondary School by Louise Spilsbury (Pearson Education)
•    Big Dinosaur Dig by Esther Ripley (DK)
•    Earthquakes and Other Natural Disasters by Harriet Griffey (DK)
•    Fantastic Mr Dahl by Michael Rosen (Penguin)
•    Real Life Storytellers by Sean Callery (Pearson Education)
•    The Story of Chocolate by Caryn Jenner (DK)

Recommended Reads
•    100 Most Deadly Things on the Planet by Anna Claybourne (A&C Black)
•    The Periodic Table by Adrian Dingle and Simon Basher (illus) (Basher/Kingfisher)
•    Predators by Steve Backshall (Orion)
•    Three Cheers for Inventors by Marcia Williams (Walker)
•    Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders: British by Tony Robinson (Macmillan)
•    Who's in Charge? Foreword by Andrew Marr (DK)

WORLD BOOK DAY TITLE: Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders: Funny Inventions by Tony Robinson (Macmillan)

4. Laugh out Loud

Online titles
•    Alternative Cinderella by Jan Burchett & Sara Vogler (Pearson Education)
•    Cosmo B Henderson: What ARE you doing? by Joanna Nadin (Pearson Education)
•    Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl (Penguin)
•    My Brother's Famous Bottom by Jeremy Strong (Penguin)
•    Pizza Cake by Maurice Gleitzman (Penguin)

Recommended Reads
•    Billionaire Boy by David Walliams and Tony Ross (illus) (HarperCollins)
•    The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon (Scholastic)
•    The Diamond Brothers in… Four of Diamonds by Anthony Horowitz and Tony Ross (illus) (Walker)
•    Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell (Simon & Schuster)
•    Fizzlebert Stump: The Boy Who Ran Away From the Circus (and joined the library) by A F Harrold (Bloomsbury)
•    Letters from an Alien Schoolboy by Ros Asquith (Piccadilly)

WORLD BOOK DAY TITLE: Tom Gates: Best Book Day Ever! (so far) by Liz Pichon (Scholastic)

5. Out of this World

Online titles
•    Heracles the Hero by Antonia Barber (Pearson Education)
•    Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (Penguin)
•    Peter Pan by J M Barrie (Penguin)
•    Aquila by Andrew Norriss (Penguin)
•    Prehistoric Predators by Haydn Middleton (Pearson Education)

Recommended Reads
•    The Haunting of Charity Delafield by Ian Beck (Bodley Head)
•    Skellig by David Almond (Hodder)   
•    The Doomspell by Cliff McNish (Orion)
•    The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black (Simon & Schuster)
•    Undead Pets 1: Return of the Hungry Hamster by Sam Hay and Simon Cooper (illus) (Stripes)
•    Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders (Marion Lloyd)

6. Stars of the Screen

Online titles
•    James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (Penguin)
•    The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (Penguin)
•    The Story of Anne Frank by Brenda Ralph Lewis (DK)
•    Titanic Tragedy by Jane Penrose (Pearson Education)
•    The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy (Penguin)

Recommended Reads
•    Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Macmillan)
•    Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone by J K Rowling (Bloomsbury)
•    The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien and David Wyatt (illus) (HarperCollins)
•    How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell (Hodder)
•    Lost Christmas by David Logan (Quercus)
•    Matilda by Roald Dahl (Puffin)         

7. Thrill Seekers

Online titles
•    Ape Adventures by Catherine Chambers (DK)
•    Everything You Need to Know About Sharks (DK)
•    Rabbit by Bob Wilson (Pearson Education)
•    Savitris' Tale and Other Heroic Stories by Anthony Horowitz - adapted by Trevor Baxendale (Pearson Education)
•    Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior by Chris Bradford (Penguin)

Recommended Reads
•    The Demon's Watch by Conrad Mason (David Fickling)
•    The Grave Robber's Apprentice by Allan Stratton (Faber and Faber)
•    H.I.V.E by Mark Walden (Bloomsbury)
•    Itch by Simon Mayo (Doubleday)
•    Sparks by Ally Kennen (Marion Lloyd)
•    The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke (Chicken House)

WORLD BOOK DAY TITLE: Hang in There Bozo: The Ruby Redfort Emergency Survival Guide for Some Tricky Predicaments by Lauren Child (HarperCollins)

8. Wild Thing 

      
Online titles
•    Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (Penguin)
•    Creatures in Danger (Globe Challenge Series) by Alison Hawes (Pearson Education)
•    The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong (Penguin)
•    Leopard Adventure by Anthony McGowan (Penguin)
•    Rainforests at Risk (Globe Challenge Series) by Alison Hawes (Pearson Education)

Recommended Reads
•    A Dog Called Homeless by Sarah Lean and Gary Blythe (illus) (HarperCollins)
•    The Great Hamster Massacre by Katie Davies and Hannah Shaw (illus) (Simon & Schuster)
•    An Imaginary Menagerie by Roger McGough (Janetta Otter-Barry)
•    One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson and Sharon Rentta (illus) (Marion Lloyd)
•    To be a Cat by Matt Haig (Bodley Head)
•    Varjak Paw by S F Said (David Fickling)

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