The Great Choice – The Class Text

With the end of the year approaching many teachers will be thinking long and hard over what book to choose for their next class read, next guided text or simply a recommendation for their children to enjoy. However how do we as teachers select our best books and what should our criteria be in the process? We cannot physically read everything that is released, especially when if you, like me, feel that we are currently living in the true golden age of children’s literature. It is also worth acknowledging that a good class text may offer different opportunities as a home read. Both may have value but may simply lend themselves more to an independent read. Here we shall examine selecting for your class. I will write about personal reads another day, otherwise this will shift from blog to essay!

Quality Texts for Reading Lessons

Now this does depend on how you deliver you reading curriculum, however with many – dare I say most – of us now delivering our reading session in a whole class format it is vital that we select our books carefully especially as they may well be with us for a whole term. I currently study a text and use it as a class read at the same time, so the pressure is high to pick the right one. I tend to look for 5 key areas when selecting;

1.       A more ambiguous cover and blurb that lends itself to inference and deduction.

2.       A broad range of different characters that have different values, opinions and behaviours.

3.       A story that offers a shared feeling or emotion that can be supported by the class as a whole and has many exciting and tense moments.

4.       Moderate/high level of new vocabulary that can be explored as a class.

5.       A context that offers wide opportunities to explore values and opinions of the time.

The ambiguous cover and blurb are obviously essential during those all-important opening discussions around a book when unpicking children’s prior knowledge of the imagery included can in fact change the entire direction of your planning. Here I am thinking of Journey to the River by Eva Ibbotson on the cover of which is often a South American skiff. None of my classes have known where this boat was likely to come from so therefore I have planned accordingly to fill in that general knowledge gap early on.

Differing characters with different values and opinions are a gold mind for comparative characterisation lessons. If one of the characters holds a bigoted or controversial view then all the better. This opens up a whole echelon of debates around context, previously held beliefs on a broader scale and the morality of the character in terms of right and wrong. In school we should be tackling such difficult topics and debating them in a safe and respectful environment.

 We all love a hero and a class love a cause or character to rally around and cheer for during the trials and tribulations of the text. If they happen to be ‘cool’ (think Hermes from Who Let the Gods Out) then they are hooked and job done.

New vocabulary is vital but you don’t want them drowning in unfamiliar words. You can only teach a certain amount of new vocab each week and they can only hold a certain amount of it in their heads, so check how much is new (obviously this may vary between children) and go with your gut.

Context is king and children need to be given the chance to explore new worlds, times and feelings. Comparing the forward thinking and understated fact that there are two male kings ruling together in Brightstorm can be brilliantly juxtaposed with the soft racism that Magpie bears the brunt of in Sky Chasers. Simply asking your children are these values acceptable opens up a myriad of learning opportunities and discussions. Don’t be scared of the controversial as long as it is still age appropriate.

So in no particular order my top 10 best classroom reads are –

1.       Who Let the Gods Out by Maz Evans
2.       Brightstorm by Vashti Hardy
3.       Sky Chasers by Emma Carroll
4.       The Peculiars by Kieran Larwood
5.       Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf
6.       The Last Wild by Piers Torday
7.          The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart
8.       Secrets of a Sun King by Emma Carroll
9.       City of Ghosts by V. E. Schwab
10.       The Light Jar by Lisa Thompson

So good luck in your quest to find that perfect text. If in doubt look up books by authors that you have experience of, you will better know the style and what to expect and it helps to root your starting point in familiarity. Furthermore, skipping to Chapter 10 and reading a few pages will also give you a good insight of content. Beware swallowing recommendations 100% from other teachers (I am aware I have just give some above) teachers tend to be lovely souls full of rainbows and sunbeams and say all books are wonderful. Many are, but some aren’t and may in fact not fit with your cohort or catchment so tread carefully.

But the number 1 rule through all of this is, does the book excite you? Does your passion and delivery and energy and enthusiasm seep from you? Do you live your book when you’re reading it and your children going to cling to every tense word that you utter? If the answer is yes, well, you’re half way there!

The End of the Odyssey

With a final goodbye the Who Let the Gods Out saga comes to an end and what a journey it has been. One of loss and heartache as much as joy and laughter I feel. Hard to read in places - perhaps more for adults than children - but a romping good tale that will entertain readers for many years yet to come I have no doubt. 

Maz Evans deciding there would be four significant parts to her story was a masterstroke. Firstly, it meant people were almost signing up for the long haul by reading book 1. But secondly and perhaps more importantly, there aren’t really any other quadrilogies .... fourologies .... quadbooks? I dunno what the word is, perhaps there isn’t one. But you know what I mean, a series told over four separate books. And essentially I guess the question is, did it work. In short, yes, definitely. 

The final instalment Against All Gods very much has the fee of tying everything together right from the off and it wastes no time in reminding you with crunching realisation of our young hero’s loss. 

Elliot is a broken shell much like his long absent father and the question that rolls the start of the book along for the opening 5 chapters or so is, will he get his mum back. Interestingly and perhaps deliberately on the part of Evans, I cared more about that than bad boy Thanatos’ attempt to take over the world. 

That for me is the beauty of this series and ironically is an aspect I actually think would be partially lost on the children reading these books. The heartbreaking relationships in the Hooper household, the well meaning but largely vacuous Call Me Graham, the tyrannical Mr Boil. All this tied up in a brown paper bag with a stamp reading good intentions. Because for me that’s largely what this series has been about, good intentions in the face of well, life. 

Elliot faces challenges and questions that no young mind should have to tackle and although ‘helped’ along the way by Virgo - who is actually not in this book as much as the others interestingly - he has to make many decisions himself. This decisions and quandaries very strongly echo elements of Harry Potter and the idea of the greater good but there are parts as in Beyond the Odyssey that I found hard to read. 

This instalment is chocker with character, with as many different accents and manners of speaking as there are regulations in the zodiac council.  This I must admit I found a tad full on (sorry) i kept trying to read it in the way the accent said and found I was losing my train of thought but that’s probably my own failure at accents more than anything. 

The book steams along picking up pace, heroes and some fist pumping moments. It is a tale of loss but a tale of friendship, family and finding purpose. One that keeps you thinking after you put it down and one that much like Kate Saunders’ Land of Neverendingsmakes you feel like the author must have first hand experience of the heart ache described in the text. 

I will always maintain that for me these books are best used in Years 5,6 and even 7. The vocab, the incredible depth of Greek history and religion that is examined and even the subject matter I think very much leans itself more to Upper KS2. 

This final instalment is no different. You follow Elliot, Zeus and the clan through trials and tribulations and this wonderfully crafted world is told with such ease and certainty that you can tell Evans has been working on it for a very long time now. She knows her characters, she knows her reader and she has produced a rare gem in this four part saga that I know will be a cornerstone of classroom book corners for many years to come.