Here are 94 books that Village School fans have personally recommended if you like
Village School.
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Lots of us rely occasionally on technology to help us entertain a young child, but the connection we form when looking at a book together cannot be beaten. I have found, both personally and professionally, that great books are born when a kind of magical mix-up is created in a child’s imagination between the words you read and the pictures they see. It feels so wonderful when this happens that they want to revisit the book again and again. I have written many books for young children over more than 20 years, and I am always striving to help cast that magical spell.
At some point, every child is in a situation, maybe just for a few seconds, where they are not totally sure that their parent is coming back. I can still remember the look on my kids’ faces on their first day at nursery school! That feeling is no different for the young owl siblings in this story, left alone in the dark woods when their mother flies off in search of food.
I love the simplicity of this tale, and the language is beautiful. We often turned to it at bedtime in our house, and no matter how many times I read, “Soft and silent, she swooped through the trees to Sarah and Percy and Bill,” it never got old.
A special 25th anniversary edition of a modern classic, Owl Babies reassures young children that Mummy will always come home.
"The perfect picture book" Guardian
A special 25th anniversary board book edition of a bestselling modern classic, Owl Babies is a comforting read for any toddler who has ever worried about mum leaving them alone, or any child starting pre-school for the very first time. Sarah, Percy and Bill the baby owls wake one night to find their mother gone. And as the darkness gathers and they perch patiently on their branch waiting for her return, oh how they worry!…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
My professional background is in working with children, my career began as an NNEB nursery nurse and I did many jobs (nanny, childminder, preschool, reception class, after school club, primary school, special school, and in learning support). I then trained as a teacher of adults and went on to be a college lecturer. I am now a senior university lecturer, but my heart has always been in the early years. I am passionate about highlighting the incredible work that is going on in the early years and in schools and have a strength-based, empowering, and optimistic view, which I try to instill in my students. Working with young children is a privilege and a joy.
This book is changing the way we view children’s development. It explains brain development in a really easy-to-understand way and it gives a completely child-centred view.
Reading this book will help you to understand children and their behaviour and it will ultimately make you a better practitioner. It is a ‘must’ for anyone working with children.
Highly Commended: Nursery World Awards 2017 Professional Book of the Year Early Childhood and Neuroscience is a practical guide to understanding the complex and challenging subject of neuroscience and its use (and misapplication) in early childhood policy and practice. The author begins by introducing the definition and history of neuroscience. The reader is then led through structured chapters discussing questions such as: Why should practitioners know about neuroscience? How can neuroscience help practitioners better provide for babies and children? and Is it relevant? Topics covered include the nature vs. nurture debate through the lens of neuroscience, epigenetics, the first 1001…
My professional background is in working with children, my career began as an NNEB nursery nurse and I did many jobs (nanny, childminder, preschool, reception class, after school club, primary school, special school, and in learning support). I then trained as a teacher of adults and went on to be a college lecturer. I am now a senior university lecturer, but my heart has always been in the early years. I am passionate about highlighting the incredible work that is going on in the early years and in schools and have a strength-based, empowering, and optimistic view, which I try to instill in my students. Working with young children is a privilege and a joy.
This book is all about fun and laughter, which is what working with children has in spades!
It is a lovely collection of anecdotes and truths about working in a school. The two Mr. Ps are a teacher and teaching assistant and they have collected many great stories which anyone who has worked in a school will recognise.
A heart-warming and hilarious look at life in the classroom from the teachers who host the most popular UK education podcast, Two Mr Ps in a Pod(Cast).
''Education's answer to Adam Kay ... Lee and Adam Parkinson are doing for teaching what he did for medicine.' The Times
Have you ever wondered what really happens during the day when your precious little angels are at school?
In this book, The Two Mr Ps will take you on a side-splittingly funny journey through the weird and wonderful world of primary schools. It…
Katie's Gamble is an unexpected, unique story about a young woman who's trying to support her younger siblings by keeping her family's confectionery shop open.
In order to do that, she has to take on her older brother, who's a notorious gambler in Louisiana. Additionally, she has to outsmart Rowdy…
My professional background is in working with children, my career began as an NNEB nursery nurse and I did many jobs (nanny, childminder, preschool, reception class, after school club, primary school, special school, and in learning support). I then trained as a teacher of adults and went on to be a college lecturer. I am now a senior university lecturer, but my heart has always been in the early years. I am passionate about highlighting the incredible work that is going on in the early years and in schools and have a strength-based, empowering, and optimistic view, which I try to instill in my students. Working with young children is a privilege and a joy.
Ken Robinson is one of the most inspirational people I have ever come across. His TED talks and books about teaching and schools are ground-breaking. He sees children as individuals with their own talents and interests, and he calls us to account to change schools so that they encourage all children to flourish.
His examples are quite wonderful; one story he tells is of a young girl mis-diagnosed with ADHD whose love of movement is nurtured and who becomes a famous ballerina. Wonderful stirring stories of amazing people, reading his books makes me want to change the world for children.
From the international bestselling author of The Element
Ken Robinson is one of the world's most influential voices in education. In this inspiring, empowering book, he sets out a new vision for how education can be transformed to enable all young people to flourish. Filled with practical examples and groundbreaking research, it will inspire the change our children urgently need.
'Compelling ... an elegant, powerfully written manifesto for change' Tristram Hunt, Guardian
'Inspires and brings a new sense of possibility to the goal of transforming education . . . This is a global game-changer' Brene Brown, author of Daring Greatly
Books were a way to navigate life, my love for my horse, and just being
an awkward feeling person. For me, the most powerful thing that stories
provide is revealing that everyone is awkward. No one really feels like
they fit in, have everything figured out, and know what this whole,
crazy existence is about. A book offers a perspective
that makes me see my world just a little more clearly. When I find relatable characters in books, I feel comforted because it makes
me realize that no one is all good and no one is all bad. We are flawed and
beautiful all at once,
just like the characters that draw me into their worlds.
The voice of the main character Will Tweedy pulled me right in. I was drawn into the world of rural Georgia in the turn of the century as if it was yesterday. I could see, smell, taste, and feel everything Olive Ann Burns described. The main character brought me along on his journey in a Huck Finn sort of way that made me feel like his best buddy.
The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around—fast. When Grandpa E. Rucker Blakeslee announces one July morning in 1906 that he's aiming to marry the young and freckledy milliner, Miss Love Simpson—a bare three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward—the news is served up all over town with that afternoon's dinner. And young Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a major scandal. Boggled by the sheer audacity of it all, and not a little jealous of his grandpa's new wife, Will nevertheless approves of this May-December match and…
In 2018, my wife and I walked the Pacific Crest Trail southbound with our four children—Canada to Mexico, 142 days, 2,650 miles. Aiden was sixteen, Georgie eleven. You cannot walk that far with your kids without thinking hard about what you are handing them, because you are handing it to them in real time, in front of you, all day. The books I keep returning to are the ones that take that seriously: inheritance that isn't money. A father's temper. A father's schemes. A way of staying put, or not. These are five that ask those questions, and the trail sharpened them for me.
The argument against everything I did…almost. Jayber stays.
One town, one river, one unrequited love, a whole life lived inside five miles—and Berry makes it enormous. I took my children across a continent to show them something; Berry would say the thing worth showing was always at home, and you only see it by staying long enough to be shaped by it.
I think he's half right, and the half he's right about is the half I'm worst at. He wants us out of the machinery and back into the land, and into the people on it. I had to unplug to find both. If you've ever suspected that leaving is the easy version, read this.
“This is a book about Heaven,” says Jayber Crow, “but I must say too that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell.” It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port William to become the town's barber.
Orphaned at age ten, Jayber Crow’s acquaintance with loneliness and want have made him a patient observer of the human animal, in both its goodness and frailty.
He began his search as a "pre-ministerial student" at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man…
Papyrologist Lisa Emmer's world flips when the Sûreté detains her at her Metro station with news of the savage murder of the esteemed Paris historian Dr. Raimond Foix, her friend and mentor in the study of ancient documents.
Horrified, Lisa finds clues at the crime scene left behind for her…
When our two boys hit their difficult years around age seven or eight and the other kids at school were starting to doubt Santa Claus, they began to ask questions about how he operated. Luckily I had answers, which became, eventually, The Christmas Chronicles. Now that I was outed as a Santa supporter, I started doing Christmas readings here and there, including every year on a radio holiday show for Access Utah, a PBS affiliate. That’s given me the delightful task of seeking out all kinds of Yuletide literature. These are a few of my favorites.
Henry is a poet, lyricist, novelist, and rancher from Woody Creek, Colorado. His whole memoir/novel, Lime Creek, is a miniature masterpiece, but I want to draw your attention to the part of it about Christmas. He and John Denver—Denver called Henry his brother—created Christmas gatherings in a barn for several years. In this excerpt set in Wyoming, he imagines one of those gatherings through the eyes of a young boy, Luke. Luke is there with his younger brother, Whitney, his older brother, Lonny, and his mother and father, Elizabeth and Spencer. And the two younger brothers are inspired to try an experiment from an old, old tradition, that on Christmas Eve, animals are given the gift of speech.
In this wonderful work of fiction, Joe Henry explores the complex relationship between a father and his sons, whose deep connections to one another, to the land, and to the creatures that inhabit it give meaning to their lives.
Spencer Davis, his wife, Elizabeth, and their sons, Luke, Whitney, and Lonny, work with horses and with their hands. They spend long relentless days cutting summer hay and feeding it to their cattle through fierce Wyoming winters. The family bears witness to the cycle of life, bringing foals into the world and deciding when to let a favored mare pass on…
As a writer of dark historical novels, I'm always drawn to other books that reflect my gothic themes. I think this interest first began when I read Wuthering Heights, soon afterwards studying the Victorian Sensation novels at university. These vividly described and densely plot-driven stories, often with shocking twists and vivid casts of characters, would thrill and entrance me. Afterwards I'd look out for any newly published books by contemporary writers dealing with similar ideas. I can't describe how it felt when I wrote one myself and saw it on the bookshop shelves.
Coming from Herefordshire on the border with Wales, my own novels are often steeped in the natural reflections of eerie rural isolation, with the folklore and pagan customs of those places existing hand in hand with the newer forms of Christianity. Perhaps this is why I connect so passionately with the novels that are set in Thomas Hardy's Wessex.
And what a spell beautiful Tess was to weave around my heart. This profoundly moving novel will never be forgotten.
'She looked absolutely pure. Nature, in her fantastic trickery, had set such a seal of maidenhood upon Tess's countenance that he gazed at her with a stupefied air: "Tess- say it is not true! No, it is not true!"'
Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice.
I’ve always been fascinated by history and the sense of place. That has led to a career in Egyptology, but I’ve come to realise that that fascination has been a part of my other interests whether it be Arsenal Football Club, rock music, or cycle touring. I’ve had the opportunity to travel a lot in recent years. My horizons have broadened, and I’ve come to appreciate the natural environment and man’s place in it more and more. None of the books on my list were chosen because of this – I read them because I thought I would enjoy them, but there’s a common theme linking them all – places, people, interactions.
This book is about a historic house in rural Suffolk in the East of England, which the author inherited from the artist John Nash. Blythe has himself made a career of writing about various aspects of the local landscape and how it, and the ways in which people have made their lives in the English countryside, have changed. The yeoman’s house itself, ‘Bottengoms’, was built in the 16th century, adapted, fell into ruin, and was then restored, and continues to be maintained to this day. It incorporates a garden and is set into the archetypally English countryside of Suffolk. Blythe’s gentle prose conveys a sense of sadness at the old ways of the traditional agricultural economy that have been lost, but in maintaining his beautiful house and sharing its story he is helping to keep some aspect of those ways, and that landscape, alive.
What happens in an old farmhouse when the farmers have left? Perhaps only a poet-historian-storyteller can say. These traditional work centres were established centuries ago, sometimes in the village street, often far away in their own fields. But the pattern of the toil was the same. This quietly vanished a few years ago. Ronald Blythe describes the going of it in his celebrated Akenfield. Some years before this his friend John Nash had rescued an already abandoned farmhouse in the Stour Valley from total dereliction. It was called Bottengoms. Nobody knows why. John Nash called himself an Artist-Plantsman. Behind both…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I became fascinated with France and the French as a child, and over the past 40 years I have spent as much time as I can here. I’ve been fortunate to be able to combine my dual passions—for France and for literature—in creating a series of classes for CUNY study abroad programs and for the Politics & Prose bookstore. Through this work, over the past 20+ years I have spent much of my time reading and teaching works of literature that explore France and the French people in depth. I now live in France, and I continue to find the French endlessly fascinating. I think I always will.
The main reason I love this book is that Jeffrey Greene is a wonderful writer. The story of how he and his wife (and eventually his mother as well) made their home in an ancient, rundown presbytery in a village in Burgundy provides a vivid, real-life picture of life in a French village for a couple of Americans. Greene’s approach allows us to not only see the French as he sees them, but also how they must see him and his wife. His deep respect and affection for his wife, his mother, his neighbors, life in France, and the beauty of nature shine throughout, all rendered in beautiful prose. And the many funny little stories he tells make me laugh out loud every time I reread this book.
When Jeffrey Greene, a prizewinning American poet, and Mary, his wife-to-be, a molecular biologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, discover a moss-covered stone presbytery in a lovely village in the Puisaye region of Burgundy, they know they have to live there. With an unabashed joie de vivre, they begin the arduous process of procuring their slice of paradise amid the wild beauty of the French countryside -- a place of gentle farmlands and dense forests, of rivers and lakes, of stunning fields bursting with the color and heady scent of wildflowers.
