Page turners
The best websites and podcasts to find brilliant books and stories.
It is a good time of year for anyone who loves reading. World Book Day was on 7 March, and International Children’s Book Day, a separate celebration of reading, is on 2 April, the birthday of fairytale author Hans Christian Andersen.
So, where might you find your next book to read? The Bookfinder section of the BookTrust’s website is a good place to start. You select your age and the types of books you like, and it recommends books.
The World Book Day website is a great resource for readers. It has lots of free audio books and a Book Club section with book recommendations, author videos and questions that you can use in discussions with other young readers. Another helpful site is School Reading
List, which has reviews of new books, as well as lists created for different primary and secondary school years. It even recommends good revision guides for SATs.
The Reader Teacher is a YouTube channel and website run by teacher Scott Evans, reviewing books he’s most excited about. On the site, you can browse by school year to find the best ones for your age.
There are also lots of good podcasts about books, stories and reading, from interviews with authors to stories you can listen to. The Fun Kids Book Worms podcast sees host Bex – who you might recognise from our podcast The Week Junior Show – talking to top authors about their books for children.
If you want to listen to stories and get inspiration for your own tales, Story Pirates turns young people’s stories into comedy and songs; Girl Tales rethinks fairytales with stronger female characters; and Greeking Out tells the mythical stories from ancient Greece. Finally, Circle Round gathers folk stories from around the world and R.L. Stine’s Story Club offers spooky tales to make you shiver.