Kids love getting into the spirit of Halloween with crafts and activities to get stuck into. But we know that sometimes you need to take some shortcuts to make sure the kids’ grand plans fit in with your own. Here we share some of our favourite off-the-shelf activity ideas from fellow small businesses.
It can be fun to feel a little scared, when snug and safe in the comfort of your own home. You can let your imagination run wild and get lost in a terrifically terrifying story. This is our top pick of spooky and creepy, yet age-appropriate, reads for 8-year-olds and up.
Sharing spooky books is a great way to add to kids’ excitement about upcoming Halloween celebrations. Whether you’re after something charming, funny or chilling, we’ve picked 7 of our favourite chapter books that we think kids aged 5 to 8 will enjoy.
Alex Johnson is a journalist and author of How to Give Your Child a Lifelong Love of Reading, which is packed with practical advice and recommendations for encouraging your child to read, as well as contributions from a host of children’s writers, including Michael Rosen, Cressida Cowell and Jacqueline Wilson.
The book we sent our Cockatoo subscribers this month is an exciting adventure story set in the Amazon rainforest that puts kids front and centre, celebrating their bravery, resilience and sense of what is just and fair. We asked author Emma Rea to tell us all about what inspired the book, the incredible cast of characters, and her travels to the Amazon.
We love a good puzzle, so the codebreaking in Mickey and the Animal Spies by Anne Miller went down a treat at Parrot Street HQ. Here Anne tells us all about the book and recommends some of her own favourite detective books for kids.
The book we sent our Cockatoo subscribers in August is a cracking sci-fi adventure, starring a brilliant cast of characters and providing the perfect jumping off point for discussions about the role of AI in our lives. We asked author Alastair Chisholm about what inspired the book and which other sci fi books for kids he would recommend.
This month we sent our Parakeet subscribers the fantastic Super Happy Magic Forest and The Humongous Fungus by author and illustrator Matty Long. Super Happy Magic Forest started out as a series of picture books, which Matty has evolved into a companion series of highly illustrated chapter books for young readers – our favourite kind of fiction! Here Matty tells us what inspired the series and about his favourite childhood reads.
A Kind of Spark is one of our books of the year so far - one of those books that should be read by kids and adults alike. It is inspired by author Elle McNicoll’s own experience of neurodiversity and her commitment to accurately representing neurodivergence in children’s books. In this guest post she tells us about her journey to publication and why diversity in children’s publishing matters.
This month we sent our subscribers off to Paris with The Pear Affair, a wonderful adventure story that roams across the French capital, from the deepest, gloomiest underground tunnels to the smartest haute couture boutiques. We were completely gripped by the mystery of Nell’s past and were excited to find out more about what inspired the book from author Judith Eagle.
In April we sent our Cockatoo subscribers the brilliant The International Yeti Collective by Paul Mason and we were thrilled when the Books.Ink team chose it as their Book of the Month for June. They asked us to put them in touch with Paul so they could interview him and they’ve kindly allowed us to repost that interview here.
We are asked all the time for book recommendations for kids who love sport. If your youngsters, like mine, are missing their usual sports clubs, teams and activities during lockdown, why not try quenching their sporty thirst with some of these fiction books for sport-loving kids?
