About Us

School Reading List’s Experience and Expertise

We offer a unique blend of experience, expertise and authority in the fields of children’s and YA literature, literacy education and library management to offer highly specialised book recommendations for schools, parents and librarians. Working with trusted partners and using our expert knowledge, we review new titles and curate free-to-use children’s book lists that are trusted by schools across the UK and worldwide.

400+ years of experience

Highly qualified teachers

knowledgeable Librarians

Children’s Literature Experts

Meet Our Team

Here’s our crack team of dedicated book reviewers, proofreaders, editors, subeditors, website techies, social media moguls, compliance experts and all-around wonderful people. School Reading List draws on a breadth of diverse perspectives and professional expertise. Our volunteer editors, teachers, librarians and subject matter experts all contribute to a thriving online community that is dedicated to promoting the best of children’s and YA literature.

Tom Tolkien - children's literature expert

Tom Tolkien

Editor

BA (Hons) PGCE QTS SLT, children’s literature expert, educational consultant & 20+ years of experience as a teacher and senior leader in primary and secondary schools.

Placeholder picture for Jan Tolkien

Jan Tolkien

Sub Editor

BEd QTS. Jan is a former primary science, humanities and art coordinator with over 30 years of teaching experience in a wide variety of educational settings.

Laurence Inman - highly qualified and experienced English teacher

Laurence Inman

Reviewer

BA (Hons) PGCE QTS. Laurence is a former English teacher; an actor, poet, short-story writer, playwright, screenwriter, cartoonist and public speaker.

Patrick Sanders - experienced and highly qualified Headteacher and English teacher

Patrick Sanders

Reviewer

Patrick is a former secondary English teacher and headteacher with over 35 years of experience. He is a husband, father and grandfather

Melanie Dillon highly qualified librarian

Melanie Dillon

Reviewer

Melanie has a Master’s degree in Information and Library Management; a Post Graduate Certificate in Children’s Literature focusing on the Reading Agency’s Reading Well scheme & LGBT YA fiction, and extensive experience working in school and public libraries

Tracy Wood experienced learning support assistant and children's book reviewer

Tracy Wood

Reviewer

I used to be a learning support assistant in a senior school for eight years before leaving to home-school my now adult daughter. I have ten grandchildren who I love reading to and spending time with.

Abeni Wangari Opeyemi - qualified paralegal

Abeni Wangari Opeyemi

Diversity Lead & Compliance

BA (Hons). Abeni Opeyemi is a qualified paralegal with experience in the fields of education law, copyright infringement, social media and professional disciplinary.

Ruth Tolkien - great granddaughter of JRR Tolkien

Ruth Tolkien

Reviewer

BSc (Hons). Ruth Tolkien is a tutor and a great-granddaughter of JRR Tolkien. She is registered blind.

Ellen White - experienced secondary school librarian.

Ellen White

Reviewer

Ellen White is a secondary school library assistant working in South East London. Her aim is to read widely and diversely and to encourage the young people she works with to do the same.

Lucy Hacker - experienced and highly qualified senior teacher

Lucy Hacker

Reviewer

Head of English at the last all-boys state school in Wales. Teacher of 17 years’ experience, and avid promoter of Reading for Pleasure.

Joanna Nance-Phillips - highly qualified children's literature expert.

Joanna Nance-Phillips

Sub Editor

MA Children’s Literature, BSc (Hons) Library and Information Services. Children’s literature expert and highly experienced teacher and school librarian.

Amanda Demwell - qualified teacher and arts professional

Amanda Demwell

Reviewer

Amanda has been a teacher, museum educator, family event manager and soft toy stuffer. She now works in the arts, managing outreach programmes that encourage reading and writing for pleasure.

Ellen White - experienced secondary school librarian.

Lucinda Brocklehurst

Reviewer

Lucinda is an artist and home educator. She is a BA in Childhood and Youth Studies student and hopes to continue onto an MA in Children’s publishing.

Lucy Hacker - experienced and highly qualified senior teacher

Joanna Hadley

Reviewer

Joanna is a children’s author who has worked in childcare for 34 Her expertise is supporting traumatized children with their social and emotional health.

The School Reading List promotes children's books to teachers and parents of pupils aged 3-16 in the UK.

This Could Be You!

New Reviewer

Are you a qualified teacher, librarian or academic with a particular interest and expertise in children’s or YA literature? Get in touch and sign up here!

Amanda Demwell - qualified teacher and arts professional

Chandice

SRL Social Media Team

Chandice is a social media marketing specialist with over 10 years of experience working in children’s publishing, youth events and holiday activity planning.

Jen Radford - experienced primary school teacher.

Jen Radford

Reviewer

Having been a primary teacher for over ten years, I have always been eager to engage children I have worked with in reading and to actively be a ‘reading teacher’ in the classroom and outside of it.

Amber Shanahan - experienced and highly qualified English subject lead teacher

Amber Shanahan

Reviewer

I have been a primary school teacher for 9 years now and I am currently English subject lead within my school. I am interested in expanding children’s range of books and improving this within my current school setting.

Harriet Davies - experienced primary school teacher and children's literature expert.

Harriet Davies

Reviewer

Experienced primary school teacher, reading and phonics lead, school librarian and children’s book enthusiast!

Amanda Demwell - qualified teacher and arts professional

Susan

SRL Virtual Office Manager

Susan is an extremely valued and flexible member of the team, dealing with phone calls, arranging meetings, coordinating partnerships and managing business emails.

Jen Radford - experienced primary school teacher.

Julie Harrison

Reviewer

Julie is an experienced primary practitioner and English leader, who has previously been a lead English practitioner for a local authority, as well as a specialist leader of education for English.

Anna Rushall teacher avatar

Anna Rushall

Reviewer

A passionate advocate for English, having taught all year groups across the primary phase and led English for much of the last twenty years, Anna is now using her lifelong enthusiasm for literature to support schools with their English provision on a consultancy basis.

Katy Andrews teaching assistan

Katy Andrews

Reviewer

I am a teaching assistant and have been for 7+ years now. I have two small children of my own, one has just started reception and her coming home every night with a book as she begins her reading journey is just the most amazing thing to me.

Nicola Carden - teacher

Nicola Carden

Reviewer

I’m a Year 6 teacher and English lead, passionate about reading and writing. I love to build my knowledge of children’s literature to support pupils in choosing new books and becoming life-long readers themselves. I also prefer children’s literature myself!


Why You Can Trust Us

What we do

We’re all about the books! Representation, variety, breadth, choice and new voices power our reading-for-pleasure booklists.

Free to use

Our website is free to use. We offer full access to every resource on our website for free. We don’t collect your data. We don’t require you to subscribe to anything.

A TrusTED source

The School Reading List website is an established and trusted source for children’s and YA book choices that are recommended by and featured on over 10,000 school websites and educational organisation websites.

Experience & expertise

Our curation team combines the strengths of educators with the expertise of librarians, authors, researchers, and other specialists in children’s literature. This approach strengthens the quality of book selections.

Diverse Perspectives

Our review and curation team embraces diversity and diverse perspectives to ensure a wider range of voices are considered and a wide range of literary representation is covered.

Academic recognition

The School Reading List website is recognised by and listed as a resource by many academic institutions that provide and award ITT, SCITT, B.Ed, PGCE and M.Ed qualifications.

Recommended and referenced

We are regularly featured in education and library management academic journals, books, periodicals and publications written by qualified professionals with expertise in children’s literature.

Very useful site to get new titles and books suitable for reading at school or recommend to kids and teens!

Review from Google Reviews

About the School Reading List

The School Reading List website recommends children’s and young adult books to teachers, parents, schools and librarians in the United Kingdom and around the world. Our team of highly experienced and highly qualified children’s literature experts, English teachers, teacher training academics, and specialist children’s librarians are highly skilled at curating fiction and nonfiction suggested reading lists and writing reviews of the latest children’s and YA books.

We specialize in curating age group and genre-based booklists for children, teens and young adults, something we’ve done since 2011. We pride ourselves on producing consistently high-quality original content, writing from diverse perspectives and delivering consistently professional curation.

Welcome to our website, which we hope will become your go-to resource for encouraging reading for pleasure and promoting lifelong learning through literacy. We are an online platform committed to inspiring and enriching the literary experiences of children and young adults across the United Kingdom and worldwide.

Our mission

At the School Reading List, our mission is to empower teachers, parents, schools, libraries, and home educators by providing a comprehensive array of children’s and young adult books, writing competitions, children’s publishers, literacy blogs, teaching resources, home learning courses, audiobooks, revision guides, graphic novels, chapter books, nonfiction, activity books, and much more. Our purpose is to instil a profound love for reading, learning, and creativity in the hearts of the next generation.

What we offer:

  1. Book Recommendations: Our carefully curated age group lists, genre book lists, new term previews and new book reviews encompass a wide range of themes, catering to the diverse interests and needs of young readers. From enchanting picture books to gripping young adult novels, we ensure that there’s something for everyone.
  2. Literacy Resources: Find a wealth of literacy and English teaching resources, offering valuable support for educators and parents in promoting reading and language skills.
  3. Writing Competitions: Encourage young writers to hone their skills and showcase their creativity through our recommended writing competitions.
  4. Children’s Publishers: Discover renowned children’s publishers and stay up-to-date with the latest releases in children’s literature.
  5. Literacy Blogs: Explore our pick of a treasure trove of informative and engaging literacy blogs that offer insights, advice, and recommendations on fostering a love for reading and learning.
  6. Home Learning Courses: Access our expertly curated lists of home learning courses to facilitate the educational journey from the comfort of your home.
  7. Revision Guide recommendations: Prepare students for academic success with revision guides and study materials that support their learning objectives.
  8. Graphic Novel lists: Dive into the world of graphic novels, an engaging medium that combines art and storytelling to captivate young readers.
  9. Children’s Literature Podcast: Tune in to our children’s literature podcast, where we discuss literary trends, author interviews, and insightful commentary on the world of children’s and young adult books.
  10. Monthly Book Club: Join our monthly book club for primary and secondary students, where readers can explore new books, engage in discussions, and connect with fellow book enthusiasts. There are also free resources to help you start your own book group.
  11. Topic and Genre Guides: Navigate the literary landscape with our topic and genre guides, designed to help you discover books that align with specific interests and educational goals.
The School Reading List website masthead

What other people say about the School Reading List

We listen to our website users. We love to receive real-world feedback and experiences from teachers, parents, librarians, academics and childcare providers that can offer us valuable insights into our resource’s effectiveness and opportunities for further improvement. Have a look at the independent reviews and evaluations of the School Reading List website below.

Wikipedia

View Wikipedia’s page about the School Reading List. “Launched in 2011, it includes age group lists for school classes, children’s and YA book reviews, ‘books of the month’, and resources“.

Google Business

👍 Your feedback means the world to us. See what other people think of us! Leave a review on Google to let others know how we’ve helped. 👍🏿 🙌🏽 Together, we can make a difference! ✨

TrustPilot

🌟 Have you found the School Reading List helpful? We’d love to hear from you! 🌟 Leave a review on TrustPilot to let others know how we’ve been useful. You can also see how other users have rated us! 👍🏿

Our children’s book list curation process – how we choose new titles

Only children’s books that we have read to children or road-tested with classes are reviewed, suggested or recommended. We listen to our authoritative panels which comprise over 100 children’s and YA literature experts including experienced primary and secondary school teachers, specialist children’s and YA librarians, children’s literature academics and lecturers, education senior leaders and home educators when we compile and refresh our collections of year group lists, genre booklists, niche suggestions and books for gifts.

Using this wealth of professional experience and expertise, we include a range of classics, new books, diverse fiction and non-fiction and poetry across the breadth of our site, and you can be assured that all the books our panel selects have received excellent feedback from young readers, school librarians and teachers.

Our panel members are experts at selecting high-quality children’s books by age, topic, and genre. They take great care to ensure age appropriateness, relevant educational value, and pure entertainment value when curating new titles for booklists.

We champion diverse perspectives, representation, inclusivity and accessibility and we strive to produce booklists that will be useful and valuable both at school and at home. Our reading-for-pleasure booklists are a one-stop shop to cover term time, classroom demands, special occasions, school holidays and back-to-school transition.

The School Reading List has clear policies and transparent information about how we select and curate content to ensure a breadth of content and powerful representation. You can view our policies here. We welcome contact from users and feedback from teachers and schools, and you can contact us here. Our core reading booklists are reviewed, updated and revised monthly and our genre booklists are reviewed termly.

We also decide on fiction, nonfiction and picture Books of the Month which are updated at the start of each month. These titles tend to be recently published books.

The children’s books we recommend in our age group and genre reading book lists are almost always bought from bookshops – both on the high street and online. Sometimes publishers provide us with pre-release copies via national and local booksellers, authors, agents, or publishers, but you can rest assured that all the titles we select for booklists have been road-tested in schools or children’s libraries. For us, it’s important to reflect, resonate and replicate our readers’ experiences.

We also showcase the best fiction, nonfiction and picture books in our Books of the Month feature which is updated at the start of each month. These titles tend to be recently published children’s and YA books or new editions of children’s and YA books.

We are often approached by authors, agents or publishers asking us to consider a new title for a list. Do have a look at our submission page which includes full details of the submission process.

You can view the qualifications, children’s literature expertise and professional education experience of our team here.

Our commitment to diversity, inclusivity and accessibility:

We are dedicated to promoting diversity, inclusivity and accessibility in children’s and young adult literature, ensuring that our recommendations reflect a wide variety of cultures, lived experiences, and minority perspectives in the UK. Read more about this in our diversity policy.

Our vision

At the School Reading List, we believe that literacy is the key to knowledge, empathy, creativity, and personal growth. We are here to support and inspire the individuals responsible for nurturing young minds, and we invite you to join us on this literary journey. Together, even if only in a small way, we can help shape a brighter and more literate future for the next generations of children and young adults in the UK.

Our history

The School Reading List website was created by Tom Tolkien in 2011. See our timeline.

About our founder

Tom Tolkien - editor School Reading List

Tom Tolkien is a highly qualified (BA Hons, PGCE, QTS) and highly experienced teacher and senior leader with over 25 years of experience working in education, including teaching KS1, KS2, KS3 and KS4 and leading English and running libraries in two schools. A children’s literature expert, he has led inset courses, developed bespoke curriculum materials and spoken at conferences. He has also advised on longlisting and shortlisting for several international children’s literature and YA literature awards and he has written for educational publishers, including contributing to a BETT award-nominated app. Social profiles: Twitter | Linkedin