30 January 2017
A Very Distant Shore by Jenny Colgan: Quick Reads learning resource
These resources have been designed for those using Quick Reads independently, as well as for those using Quick Reads in a group.
30 January 2017
Spies and Crime Busters - Chatterbooks Activity Pack
Following up on our previous ‘spies and detectives’ packs, here’s another collection of action adventures and detective stories, with thrills and twists – and often humour too! As well as lots of reading suggestions for your group you’ll find ideas on...
24 January 2017
A Busy Day for Birds video
Go behind the scenes with multi-award-winning author/illustrator Lucy Cousins (creator of Maisy) and find out about her new picture book, A Busy Day for Birds. Flap your wings, fly up high, open your beak and sing in this fun action rhyme...
24 January 2017
Also An Octopus Activity sheets
Download these fun Also An Octopus activity sheets for your Chatterbooks group, including colouring sheets and spot the difference
19 January 2017
Chatterbooks Newsletter
The latest Chatterbooks Newsletter. This January newsletter has lots of exciting offers and competitions.
16 January 2017
Samantha Shannon Book Trailer Hack
Explore the supernatural underworld of The Bone Season series and create a book trailer. The Bone Season is a ground-breaking fantasy series that has been described as “part Hunger Games dystopia, part urban fantasy”. This pack is designed to help you...
13 January 2017
My Old Man: Tales of Our Fathers by Ted Kessler - an extract
If you were asked to write about your father, what would you say? No two paternal relationships are the same. Every experience, every bond, is unique. And whether happy or sad, fond or fraught, the memories and stories we have...
13 January 2017
Les Parisiennes by Anne Sebba - discussion questions
“This is a fascinating book I couldn’t stop reading. She understands everything about the chic, loathsome collaborators and the Holocaust victims, and their stories are told in an irresistible narrative flood.” Edmund White, author of The Flâneur “Sebba reminds us that we...
13 January 2017
Les Parisiennes by Anne Sebba - an extract
What did it feel like to be a woman living in Paris from 1939 to 1949? These were years of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation and secrets until – finally – renewal and retribution. Even at the darkest moments of Occupation,...
12 January 2017
Walls Come Tumbling Down: The Music and Politics of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge by Daniel Rachel - discussion questions
“A triumphant oral history of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge . . . a tale of resistance: first, against a surge of racism and bigotry that an inspired group of activists and musicians played a key role...
12 January 2017
Walls Come Tumbling Down: The Music and Politics of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge by Daniel Rachel - an extract
Walls Come Tumbling Down charts the pivotal period between 1976 and 1992 that saw politics and pop music come together for the first time in Britain’s musical history; musicians and their fans suddenly became instigators of social change, and ‘the...
12 January 2017
Stories from Around the World - Chatterbooks Activity Pack
In this pack are reading ideas for all ages: adventures, folk tales, stories in translation and non-fiction titles, which take you around the world introducing you to people and places, and their lives and experiences. There are also ideas for...
11 January 2017
Instructions for a Second-Hand Heart - discussion questions
Download these discussion questions for Instructions for a Second-Hand Heart by Tamsyn Murray.
06 January 2017
Full Marks for Trying: An unlikely journey from the Raj to the rag trade by Bridgid Keenan - an extract
Brigid Keenan was never destined to lead a normal life. From her early beginnings – a colourful childhood in India brought to an abrupt end by independence and partition, then a return to dreary post-war England and on to a...
06 January 2017
Full Marks for Trying: An unlikely journey from the Raj to the rag trade by Bridgid Keenan - discussion questions
“With flashes of Nancy Mitford wit … Brigid Keenan is as skittish as a kitten with needle claws, as stricken as a deer in headlights, and as smart as a cage of monkeys.” The Times “Keenan, I suspect, was quite possibly put...
06 January 2017
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell - an extract
Shortlisted for the Costa Book Award. Shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Award. Shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award. This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell crosses time zones and continents to reveal an extraordinary portrait...
05 January 2017
My name is Leon by Kit De Waal - an extract
“Unforgettable, heartbreaking and uplifting – just read it.” “Leon is pure goodwill in a wicked world, and he won’t leave you when you put this unique book down. Authentic and beautiful, urgent and honest.” Chris Cleave, bestselling author of The Other Hand A...
05 January 2017
The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jack Arnopp - an extract
It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he’d already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed. Then there was that video: forty seconds...
05 January 2017
Tuco: The Parrot, the Others, and a Scattershot World by Brian Brett - an extract
For thirty years, Brian Brett shared his office and his life with Tuco, a remarkable parrot given to asking such questions as “Whaddya know?” and announcing “Party time!” when guests showed up at Brett’s farm. Although Brett bought Tuco on...
05 January 2017
Tuco: The Parrot, the Others, and a Scattershot World by Brian Brett - discussion questions
Brian Brett is the author of Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life, which won the Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize, and Uproar’s Your Only Music, a Globe and Mail Book of the Year. He has also written numerous books...
04 January 2017
Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time by Michael du Preez and Jeremy Dronfield - an extract
“Thoroughly engaging.” Sunday Times, Books of the Year “Gripping, unusual, moving.” Times, Books of the Year “An irresistible little byway in 18th-century medical and social history.” Oldie “A scintillating portrait of Barry’s life…that feels almost Dickensian in style.” Guardian These are just some of the reviews about the...
04 January 2017
Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time by Michael du Preez and Jeremy Dronfield - discussion questions
Dr James Barry was many things in his life: Inspector General of Hospitals, army surgeon, duellist, reformer, lady killer, eccentric. He performed the first successful Caesarean in the British Empire, outraged the military establishment, and gave Florence Nightingale a dressing...
04 January 2017
The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler - discussion questions
We have attached some discussion questions for you to use with your reading group about The Tobacconist. From the bestselling author of A Whole Life, comes a moving account of an ordinary boy living through extraordinary times, and the lengths we...
04 January 2017
The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler - an extract
When seventeen-year-old Franz exchanges his home in the idyllic beauty of the Austrian lake district for the bustle of Vienna, his homesickness quickly dissolves amidst the thrum of the city. In his role as apprentice to the elderly tobacconist Otto Trsnyek,...
20 December 2016
LEGO® Winter Wonderland Activity Sheet
Download this free LEGO activity sheet and bring the snowy scene to life! Colour in the elf and his hungry reindeer, and search for some wintery words. Why not print them off for all the family to enjoy!
20 December 2016
A Monster Calls - discussion guide
Download these discussion questions for A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
20 December 2016
Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland 2016 - Participation Report
Here is the national participation report for the Big Friendly Read, Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland 2016.
19 December 2016
Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-extinction by Helen Pilcher - an extract
If you could bring back just one animal from the past, what would you choose? It can be anyone or anything from history, from the King of the Dinosaurs, T. rex, to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presley,...
19 December 2016
Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-extinction by Helen Pilcher - discussion questions
De-extinction – the ability to bring extinct species back to life – is fast becoming reality. Around the globe, scientists are trying to de-extinct all manner of animals, including the woolly mammoth, the passenger pigeon and a bizarre species of...
19 December 2016
The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J Walker - discussion questions
Edgar Hill is 35 and caught in his own headlock. Overweight slob, under-performing husband and reluctant father – for Ed, the world may as well have already ended. So when it does end in a catastrophic asteroid strike and Edgar...
