I’ve seen a few blog posts sharing people’s favourite books of the year and as I’ve bought so many, I thought I would share mine too. Now, not all of these were released in 2019, but that is when I bought them. Most of them I bought for my 4y/o son but some have been used or could be used, in school too. The list is in no particular order, they’re just books I love or that we enjoy together. I hope you find something new for your collection.
Yuval Zommer’s artwork is incredible. You might have seen The Street Beneath Your Feet which is a fantastic book that unfolds across an entire classroom and shows the different layers of the Earth. It led to so much discussion from my class that we kept bringing the book out day after day. It was at Reading Rocks South that I saw another of his books and managed to pick up a signed copy of The Big Book of Beasts and this started my Yuval Zommer obsession. The Bugs book is just as amazing and every page is full of great pictures to pore over.
I first saw this book at Reading Rocks South and I almost bought it. It was beautiful and my son loves dinosaurs but I had just spent over £40 on other books so I decided to wait. A few weeks later, during a discussion via Twitter on reading in school, Hollie Hughes said she would send my class a book. What I didn’t realise was that it would be this one, along with a postcard, a poster and some stickers and the book would be signed to my class. They loved it. It brought up a lot of discussion about dreams and they loved looking at the gorgeous illustrations too.
We only received this book a few days ago but I haven’t seen my son laugh so much at a book since The Book with no Pictures. Each page adds a bit more description to the donkey and it gets sillier and sillier.
I love Andy Stanton because he wrote Mr Gum and I love David Litchfield because…well, every book he does is amazing so this was a perfect match. I don’t know how to describe this book as it is strange, unusual and beautiful. It is about a grandmother discussing the wondrous things she remembers from her childhood such as flying elephants or planets getting married. She then laments the loss of such things until her grand-daughter shows her otherwise. Every picture is stunning and my son asks for this book regularly.
You’ve already seen screenshots of this book on Twitter and Facebook. It is everywhere and rightly so. Every single page is gorgeous and there are so many delightful quotes that I wanted to take a photo of each one to share with people. I finished reading this and immediately read it again and then started making a list of people I wanted to buy it for.
Not a deep-thinking choice now, but you can’t go wrong with a bit of Supertato. We have 5 of his adventures now and this is our favourite. There are funny jokes, silly character and that dastardly pea trying to wreck everything.
We have two of these books in our collection now. We bought the weather one back in May and he got the space one for Christmas. We read the weather book every week or two. Each page is split into How/What/Why type questions and then you find the answer by lifting the flap. Well worth looking at this series if you have a little scientist in your family/classroom.
Oliver has a few books that mention sustainability or environmental issues but this was the first one that made him really stop. There’s a page showing the vibrant life in the rainforest and then the next page shows what humans are doing. He said, “Daddy, why are people ruining the planet?” If this book can make a 4yo think and ask questions, imagine what it could do in a classroom.
We love the “10 little” series. On each page, one of the characters has an accident (they’re always fine at the end) and disappears. We like to pick one of the characters each and see which will survive the longest. The illustrations are like nothing I’ve ever seen, they are so bright and colourful!
Another of Oliver’s favourites! A cockapoo wants to change his name because everyone laughs at it but then he meets a Blue-footed Booby, an Ice-Cream Cone Worm and a Shovelled Nose Guitarfish and they all think their names are worse. Every animal in this crazy book is real and we have now started using the fact file at the back to look up the animal’s countries on our globe.
This was the first book in a long time, maybe ever, where I saw snippets before it was released and knew I had to buy it. David Litchfield shared artwork from the book on Twitter and Instagram and it is incredible. An amazing story that follows his other books like Grandad’s Secret Giant and The Bear and the Piano with incredible illustrations and aa lovely ending too. The main character sees strange lights one night and then keeps going back, hoping that they will return…
