Encouraging reading for pleasure

The benefits of reading for pleasure cannot be overstated. It is more than just reading widely to prepare for exams. Reading develops empathy; it allows the reader to inhabit a character’s shoes and become immersed in other cultures and worlds. As well as enriching vocabulary and helping to better understand our place in the world, reading transports us to far-flung places with only our imaginations as a mode of transport.

At Aster Tuition we live and breathe books. Our tutors are all devoted to the joys of reading and we share this with our students. For us, it is crucial that our tutors love reading and understand the benefits of sharing this love with young people. So we expect our tutors to share recommendations with children (and vice versa!) and for a buzz around reading to be created.
While recommended reads can be helpful, we want to promote a love of books, be it fiction or nonfiction, graphic novels or biographies and everything in between! These are just some of the children’s and Young Adult books we have been reading recently and can wholeheartedly recommend:

 

Wave Riders – Lauren St John

Twins Jess and Jude Carter live a dream life sailing from one exotic destination to the next with their guardian, Gabriel. But after Gabe vanishes and a storm smashes up their lives, they’re left penniless and alone. When a wealthy, glamorous family offer them a home, everybody tells them they’re the luckiest children in the world. But the Blakeneys’ stately mansion is full of secrets – secrets that seem entangled with the twins’ own fate. As they race to uncover the truth, Jess and Jude must confront their deepest fears.

 

Twitch – M.G. Leonard

Twitch has three pet chickens, four pigeons, swallows nesting in his bedroom and a passion for birdwatching. On the first day of the summer holidays, he arrives at his secret hide to find police everywhere: a convicted robber has broken out of prison and is hiding in Aves Wood. Can Twitch use his talents for birdwatching to hunt for the dangerous prisoner and find the missing loot?

 

When the Sky Falls – Phil Earle

Inspired by a true story. It’s 1940, and Joseph has been packed off to stay with Mrs F, a gruff woman with no great fondness for children. To Joseph’s amazement, she owns the rundown city zoo where Joseph meets Adonis, a huge silverback gorilla. Adonis is ferociously strong and dangerous, but Joseph finds he has an affinity with the lonely beast. But when the bombs begin to fall, it is up to Joseph to guard Adonis’s cage should it be damaged by a blast. Will Joseph be ready to pull the trigger if it comes to it?

 

Me, my dad and the end of the Rainbow – Benjamin Dean

Things aren’t going great for Archie Albright. His dad’s acting weird, his mum too, and he all he wants is for everything to go back to normal, to three months before when his parents were happy and still lived together. When Archie sees a colourful, crumpled flyer fall out of Dad’s pocket, he thinks he may have found the answer. Only problem? The answer might just lie at the end of the rainbow, an adventure away.

Together with his best friends, Bell and Seb, Archie sets off on a heartwarming and unforgettable journey to try and fix his family, even if he has to break a few rules to do it…

 

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne – Jonathan Stroud

 

Set in a broken, future England, where gunfights and monsters collide, this is the exciting first title in a phenomenal fantasy teen series by the bestselling children’s novelist. England has been radically changed by a series of catastrophes – large cities have disappeared and London has been replaced by a lagoon. The surviving population exists in fortified towns where they cling to traditional ways, while strangely evolved beasts prowl the wilderness beyond.

 

The Last Bear – Hannah Gold

 

There are no polar bears left on Bear Island. At least, that’s what April’s father tells her when his scientific research takes them to this remote Arctic outpost for six months. But one endless summer night, April meets one. He is starving, lonely and a long way from home. Determined to save him, April begins the most important journey of her life…

This moving story will win the hearts of children the world over and show them that no one is too young or insignificant to make a difference. The Last Bear is a celebration of the love between a child and an animal, a battle cry for our world and an irresistible adventure with a heart as big as a bear’s.

 

Storm – Nicola Skinner

Frances’s parents were not prepared for her birth: they had a blanket and an easel and some paint, but not anything useful, like a car or a phone. So it’s no wonder Frankie has always had a temper. She was born on a beach, in a STORM. What Frances was not prepared for was dying in a freak natural disaster that wiped out her whole town.

Waking up 100 years later, Frances finds a whole load of new things to be angry about. And that’s before the visitors start turning up, treating her home like it’s a tourist attraction. Which it is.

Only there are worse people out there than tourists… and they’re coming for Frankie.

Frankie is about to discover that there are things more important than herself – and that anger has its uses. Because when you have a storm inside you – sometimes the only thing to do is let it out..

 

Crowfall – Vashthi Hardy

Ironhold is an orderly place where “industry brings prosperity”, and where nature is pushed aside for progress. But when Orin Crowfall, a lowly servant boy, learns that the island itself is in grave danger, that knowledge makes him a target of powerful forces. He narrowly escapes on a small boat, but then faces a fight for survival with his robot friend, Cody, in the stormy ocean, pursued by a terrifying sea monster.

Can they make it to safety, somewhere beyond the horizon? And will Orin find a way back to save his family before everything is destroyed? To succeed, Orin will need to dig deep for courage, trust in new friends, and, ultimately, have faith in himself.

This is fantasy adventure at its finest: riotous adventure, memorable characters, incredible world building, and a powerful, thought-provoking message about ecological balance.