This week, in celebration of Golden National Non-Fiction November, our guest blogger is author and senior editor Kirsty Holmes. She’s putting forward the case for non-fiction, so let’s hear what she’s got to say. American author and journalist Tom Wolfe once said, “The problem with fiction is that is has to be plausible. That’s not true with non-fiction.” – and I think it’s a great argument! Much of our focus on reading in the classroom, especially reading for pleasure, is often on fiction – and for good reason. Fiction stories draw readers in with amazing worlds, fantastic beasts, and relatable...

This week’s guest blogger is author and editor Robin Twiddy. Robin has a first-class honours degree in Psychosocial Studies, and as today is World Philosophy Day, we got him pondering on the idea of philosophy in the primary classroom. Our children learn a lot of brilliant, exciting and eye-opening things in the classroom each day. They learn science and maths, they learn about nature and geography, history and art and a hundred things more; but it is rare to hear that primary school children are learning philosophy. But what is philosophy? Is it learning Greek names by rote? Is it remembering...

It’s National Non-Fiction November and here at BookLife we wanted to show off our favourite non-fiction titles. Resident author and editor Emilie Dufresne picks her top ten non-fiction titles from BookLife Publishing. 10. Winter (All Year Round) Coming in at number 10 is Winter from the series All Year Round. Well, seeing as it is the season for it, we couldn’t help but put this early years title in our top ten. With both pictures and vectors this unbelievably sweet title will get your little ones wanting to snuggle up in these colder months! View the Book 9. WWF (World...

Mental illness affects a staggering number of our children and young people. Studies show that a shocking 75% of mental illnesses begin before a child reaches their 18th birthday, putting teachers and schools on the front line when it comes to helping the next generation deal with this ever-present issue. Teachers are often not trained specifically in mental health, and need time and resources to support them in working with this issue. With 10% of children between the ages of 5 and 16 receiving a mental health diagnosis, the time to act is now. An ever-growing number of case studies...

This week, we’ve asked our author Holly Duhig to write us a blog, talking about our beautiful and important new series Healthy Minds. Holly, along with John Wood, has developed an innovative series of books for discussing emotions and mental health with children.