Georgina Atwell's Reading List

"This book is just delightful. It’s got the most beautiful cover, which gives you an insight into the illustrations inside but it has a really poignant message in the story too. It explores what it means to share space with others, and to find your place alongside different characters, in a way that feels very true to how young children experience the world. It takes a small, familiar situation and uses it to explore much bigger feelings without ever feeling heavy handed. It follows this very sweet little character, Little Red, who is delighted when he finds a beautiful tree, which he wants for himself. It taps into that feeling that lots of young children have: “Mummy, it’s mine!” But all the other animals start arriving in the tree, and that sense of ownership is challenged. Little Red’s discomfort is palpable, but handled with real empathy. His feelings aren’t corrected or dismissed; they’re simply allowed to exist. When he’s had enough of all these other animals infringing on his space, he goes off on his own, and that’s a feeling that many little children will identify with too. Then there’s a slight shift in the story because he finds himself in a mildly perilous encounter with an animal — that’s a familiar moment for little kids, too, as they do find themselves in slightly scary situations — and it’s the other animals he had pushed away who come to his aid. So the children get to see how safety and belonging are created through shared support rather than isolation and that actually doing things on your own and all by yourself isn’t necessarily the best approach. From a reading point of view, as an adult reading it with a child, the book is beautifully constructed. The repeated arrivals of the animals in the tree help the children anticipate what’s going to happen next, and the illustrations carry a huge amount of emotional information. Jessica Meserve’s artwork invites very slow, careful reading, and encourages children to notice expressions, body language and small details. You can pore over these pictures together if you’re reading with the child. As a parent, I value books like this because they open up thoughtful conversations naturally. Yes. And it shows children that living alongside others can sometimes feel complicated, but that shared spaces can become richer when we make room for each other. So it’s a very calm, reassuring story that children return to, because it reflects situations they recognise in their own lives. As an adult reading it with them, you’ll appreciate the message and the beautiful illustrations. It’s a very sweet story to share together. Our reviewers loved it, the kids and the adults too — it is universally loved. We get a lot of picture books being reviewed on the site, but for me, this one really stood out."

"Claire Powell is a fantastic author and illustrator. I enjoyed Marty Moose , and our readers enjoyed it too, because it captures the excitement and nerves of trying something new in a way that feels warm, funny and very reassuring. It’s the story of Marty, who’s a mouse, not a moose. It’s a typo on his birth certificate. He has just landed his first job as a postmouse and everything unfolds over the course of his very first day in this job. The story begins with him at home with lovely glimpses of his chaotic family life, which immediately grounds the story. Marty is nervous about his first day and he wants to do well. It’s not anxiety, he’s genuinely excited, which I think is quite sweet. So he sets off on his delivery route, and the story becomes a gentle and rather wacky adventure. He encounters a cast of memorable characters, including two warring toads and a number of other tricky animals, each bringing their own small complications. Along the way, Marty starts to piece together a mystery, spotting clues that help him work out who’s causing all the trouble. He’s been very focused on himself and what he’s doing and how well he’s doing, but then he has a gradual realisation that he is not the problem; he realises there is something else going on, and with a little help from his new friends he can turn things around. Structurally, the book is beautifully pitched. Short chapters make it ideal for bedtime, and natural stopping points within the book encourage you to look at the illustrations and talk about what has happened and how Marty is feeling. The format is incredibly supportive for developing readers and for shared reading at the end of a busy day. I would say it’s for ages 5 to 7, which is quite a tricky age range. It’s often a stage where parents assume children are just learning to read and they don’t need to include other reading, but actually this is a brilliant time to read books that are a little bit longer than picture books, but still have illustrations and aren’t too text heavy. A book like this perfectly bridges that gap. The illustrations play a huge role here. Claire brings the story and its inhabitants to life with real warmth and humour, and Marty himself is brilliantly expressive. He’s determined, and very courageous. He starts off quite uncertain and he becomes quite bold by the end, so you see him develop through the hundred or so pages. There’s a line in the book which is something like “Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can’t be brave”, which sums up the whole book beautifully. It’s about doing your best, navigating the unexpected, and realising that bravery sometimes is just showing up and dealing with whatever life throws at you. It’s a very comforting read and it’s exactly the kind of story children love returning to. Yes, I think it’s book one in a new series. Claire Powell has illustrated other books as well. I really love her illustrations, they’re so quirky."

"Tom McLaughlin is a relatively well-known author, among others he has written The Accidental series , but until recently I hadn’t realised that he also does illustrations. It’s a graphic novel, and it’s a book that kids find irresistibly funny. That sense of joy is why it matters so much. I’m not surprised, he really seems to understand children and what they find humorous. Alan, King of the Universe is made up of five short stories. I would say it’s for ages 7+. Each story follows Alan, who is a very confident cat, determined to take over the universe alongside his loyal friend Fido, a dog who helps carry out the plans. The humour comes from the fact that Alan is brimming with big ideas and absolute self-belief, but not much practical sense. Fido, on the other hand, is thoughtful, creative and quietly competent. That classic dynamic of the overconfident leader and the smart sidekick is something I think that children enjoy immensely, and it’s played to brilliant effect here. Their attempts at world domination are imaginative, enthusiastic and completely doomed, which makes the stories all the more satisfying. From a child’s reading perspective, the short story structure is spot on and it makes the book very approachable. Children can dip in and out, they can read one story at a time or fly through the whole book. That flexibility is incredibly helpful for developing readers and for children who might struggle with longer, more continuous narratives. Most of our readers flew through the whole book and loved it, and many parents said they heard their children giggling while reading, which I think is the best possible recommendation. The graphic novel format does a huge amount of work, so reading it doesn’t feel like hard work. The visual storytelling carries the jokes, the timing, the emotional beats, while the text remains punchy and accessible. Decoding images and words together strengthens comprehension, sequencing, and inference, which is why graphic novels should never be underestimated. And I love how creative Alan and Fido’s partnership is. It’s wildly imaginative, even if the two of them are not very good at executing their plans. I think that celebration of creativity, failure, and trying again is a quiet but really important theme. So this book is very re-readable and a perfect example of how graphic novels can hook children into reading through humour and imagination. I’m a huge fan of graphic novels. My daughter devours them, and so do many of her friends, and I think it’s one of those things that adults are coming round to. There used to be this idea that graphic novels were a stage that you would grow out of, a stepping stone to long-form fiction, but I think the more we encourage children to read books that they genuinely enjoy — and they clearly love graphic novels — the more likely they are to keep reading. There are fantastic graphic novels for ages 7 to 70 now, so there’s no need to force them to move on to long-form fiction if it risks damaging their enjoyment of reading in the long term."

"Shadow Thieves is very, very different. It’s a brilliant adventure that immediately pulls you into its world, both in terms of setting and character. The story centres on Tom, who is a boy scraping by on the streets of London, surviving through quick thinking, sharp instincts and a talent for pickpocketing, so it’s a tough start. The book doesn’t shy away from the reality of his situation, and that gives the story real weight from the outset. Then everything shifts because his friends are caught and sent to a brutal workhouse, and Tom is approached by an enigmatic character called the Corsair, who offers him the chance to train at an elite boarding school for thieves. It’s an impossible decision for Tom, and a huge responsibility. It’s an escape, but it comes at a cost and he has to decide who he can trust and what kind of person he wants to become. It works because it’s a really nice mix of historical atmosphere with fantasy and adventure, and the London setting is gritty and alive. The boarding school element is a whole new world with its own rules and hierarchies and dangers. The world building is carefully layered, and the reader is drawn in without feeling overwhelmed. It’s still very much middle grade (ages 8-12) rather than Young Adult but I would position it at the older end. You will find some confident readers age 8 or 9 who would gravitate towards it, but I would say it is best suited to ages 11-14. Exactly, that’s the setting, and I think Harry Potter crossed with the Hunger Games is a great comparison, with both series aimed at readers around 11-14. While Harry Potter begins younger — the first book is often enjoyed by 7 or 8 year olds — it matures quickly and the final book is really quite dark. That 11+ space is a tricky area; the start of secondary school, questions around identity and fitting in, trying something new and feeling out of your depth. I think Shadow Thieves is brilliantly placed to help readers see themselves and help them navigate the challenges they’re experiencing. Middle grade fantasy books like this have become hugely popular with adult readers, something that began with Harry Potter , and has only grown since. These books offer immersive storytelling, gripping plot lines and richly-drawn characters. I can see on Toppsta that this book was really enjoyed by children as well as adults and it’s perfectly pitched for this age group. It’s beautifully written and thoroughly enjoyable. Reading does so many things. Obviously, there’s the learning to read and educational aspect, but for me that is such a tiny part of why we should read. Reading builds language, it builds empathy, it builds imagination. And aside from all of that, there are significant improvements for physical and mental health as well. It can lower your blood pressure, it’s good for cognitive development, and it gives you perspective. I don’t think it’s coincidence that so many books start off with children who are orphaned. You suddenly look around and go “I’m not an orphan. I’ve got parents, my life isn’t this hard”. That kind of perspective encourages you to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and to think about what might be their motivation. Reading really does help with mental health, and I worry that as reading has declined both at home and in the classroom, that it’s linked to the decline in mental wellbeing. Those few minutes at the end of the day when the teacher would sit down and read and the kids would sit back and relax — when they weren’t being tested, when they could step away from any issues with friends and just listen to a story — that was really positive for mental health. Reading is in many ways meditation, which we’re all encouraged to do. What I’d like to see is a shift in how we see reading, in the same way that we’ve changed our perception of sport. Sport has now become something for health, not just a competitive activity. You might go running to clear your head, to feel better, and we need to make the same shift with reading. Reading can make you feel better in so many different ways, and we need to incorporate it back into the day, both at school and at home. I totally agree. The focus has been, quite rightly, on access to books, and that still matters. There are many children for whom access is a genuine barrier, and we should never lose sight of that. But layered on top of that is a very different challenge, and it’s one I think we don’t always talk about enough. Even when children do have access to books at home, at school or through libraries, even when their parents have read to them since they were born, even if they see their parents reading in front of them, all the things that we are meant to do to encourage reading, many children are still choosing not to read. So the issue shifts from access to engagement. And what we see very clearly is that children don’t stop reading because they can’t read. They stop because reading doesn’t feel compelling enough to compete with everything else in their lives, whether it’s screens or gaming or constant digital stimulation. So books have to work even harder to earn a child’s attention. That’s why initiatives like the UK government’s year of reading next year are so important, because its aim is not just to increase access, but to try and rebuild a culture of reading for pleasure, by encouraging families, schools and communities to make reading visible, shared, and enjoyable again. It recognises that reading habits are formed through motivation and enjoyment and not obligation. So, while access remains essential, I don’t think it’s sufficient on its own. The next challenge is ensuring that children enjoy reading and feel the benefits beyond the educational benefits, and that’s where choice, format and relevance become crucial, and where publishers, educators and parents all have a role to play. Prior to 2025, there was a boom in middle grade adventure and fantasy, with brilliant world building and ambitious, big moral questions. Many adults are reading those books, too, drawn to those immersive stories that feel hopeful rather than cynical. For the last 12 to 18 months, illustrated fiction and graphic novels have continued to be strong, and children are no longer expected to grow out of these formats, which play a vital role in keeping children reading for pleasure, particularly at key transition points. For the older age groups, there’s romantasy . Beyond that, much of the focus now is on just getting kids reading. I’m excited to see how formats continue to evolve, particularly in illustrated and audiobooks. Children enjoy storytelling and content in many different ways. As adults, I think we need to stop putting books into some kind of imaginary hierarchy with text-heavy books at the top and illustrated at the bottom. So I’d like to see more formats coming through and becoming mainstream. Sadly, I think the industry has taken some steps backwards when it comes to diversity. Economic pressure has led to more risk-averse publishing, which has narrowed the range of voices being shared. From a children’s reading perspective, that’s disappointing because we know that young children are open and responsive to a wide range of stories. For me, kids’ opinions are the voices that I listen to most, so in a way it feels like I’m going against my own ethos by making recommendations. That said, these really are five exceptional books and of all the hundreds of children’s books I’ve read this year, they stand out. One of the joys of being in kids’ books is getting to read so widely, and there are many fantastic books out there. But for me, children are always the best judges and they rarely disappoint so next year, as always, I’ll be looking to them for my recommendations."