Picture books for older readers

This Smarties Prize-winning picture book about a trench football game shows you the First World War in powerful simplicity. Four friends from rural Suffolk go away to fight at the Front. They confront the German soldiers and the mud, cold, death and vermin of the trenches. But one Christmas Day, soldiers from both sides emerge from their trenches and put aside the war. No book gets you closer to the reality of the war than this moving true story, which includes historical notes.

This funny book is set on a farm. But where is the farmer? He’s so lazy he lies in bed all day. He bullies poor Duck into doing all the work, and doesn’t care how tired Duck gets – until the other farm animals decide to strike back! This is a classic story about kindness, and the importance of standing up for your friends.

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A sunny, fresh counting poem which won the Smarties Book Prize Bronze Award. Written in swinging rhythm and rhyme with lots of Caribbean dialect, this verse introduces the names of many exotic fruits, and it’s a brilliant resource to use in lessons about poetry and language.

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Four people go to the park, and through their eyes we see four different stories about what took place there. There’s the bossy woman, the sad man, the lonely boy – and the young girl whose warmth touches them all. As the story moves from one voice to another, their perspectives are reflected in the shifting landscapes and seasons.

When two small sisters go fishing in the magic pond, they find something much better than a frog or a newt: a bog baby. They take him home, but the bog baby is a wild thing and soon becomes poorly. The girls realise they must tell Mum, and she teaches them the greatest lesson of all – if you really love something, you have to let it go.

On land, Sylvia can’t walk. But in the sea she swims like magic. Luka knows she must be a mermaid. He longs to splash in the silvery surf and dive in the waves like her. Where others see Sylvia’s wheelchair, Luka sees the light of her smile and the sea shining out of her eyes. This is a truly beautiful story of friendship and difference.