Please also see sections on “Interactive Children’s Books” and “E-books
ARBookFinder: Accelerated Reader Book Finder is a free online tool from Renaissance Learning. You can search as a pupil, parent, teacher or librarian
Achuka: this website is an independent children’s books site with up-to-date reviews, author interviews and news about children’s books and children’s book people
Armadillo Magazine: a children’s online magazine featuring children’s book news, reviews and interviews
Barrington Stoke: is a market-leader in producing accessible, enjoyable and importantly unpatronising books for children who are dyslexic, struggling to read, or simply reluctant to sit down with a book.
Book Trust: this website provides booklists, reading recommendations and guidance for young people from babies to teenagers, plus book news and even resources for teachers, parents and librarians.
Children’s Book Sequels: a site to help users discover the right order of any series. Searches available by series name, author, titles or main characters.
Comic Book Resources: this site includes news reviews and forums.
Common Sense Media: offering a large searchable library of age -appropriate ratings and reviews for not only BOOKS but also movies, games, apps, and TV shows this is a very useful website when struggling to discover if content is age appropriate
Federation of Children’s Book Groups: if you want to learn more about children’s books, or set up a book group, if you are a teacher or librarian who would like to share your passion and expertise about books with your local community then the FCBG is for you. This website is a particular favourite with LIPSSEE members
Fiction Express: An innovative, interactive book platform that connects students with professional authors and encourages reading for pleasure through the fun co-creation of stories. Every half-term, three books are published on their website in weekly chapters. What happens next is entirely up to the readers. Using their votes, they are able to decide where the plot goes next. The author will thenbring the most popular choice to life.
Inclusive Minds: a collaboration of consultants and campaigners who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children’s literature and are committed to changing the face of children’s books so that every child can access and enjoy books that reflect a more diverse society.
The Krib: an online literacy platform, that unites readers and inspires them to talk about books and share them with their friends. Includes the latest books plus reviews, learning guides, audience vlogs, competitions and so much more
Letter Box Library: leading education supplier, specialising in multicultural and inclusive children’s books. Books are chosen for their celebration of diversity as well as their excellence in storyline/artwork
LibraryThing: is an online service to help people catalogue their books easily. You can access your catalogue from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogues together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth. Shelfari and GoodReads offer similar facilities to LibraryThing – you can see what your friends are reading, keep track of what you’ve read and even organize your books into virtual bookshelves
Love Reading 4 Kids: one of the best recommendations sites for children’s books around. It has books for all ages from babies right through to young adult
Love Reading 4 Schools: helps schools and parents, with reading lists for children in Years 1 – 9. The site has selected lists of books that schools can use – it also allows them to personalise these lists or create them from scratch. 5% of the money spent by parents on the website comes back to the school as book vouchers to help develop the library.
Mrs Mad’s Book-a-Rama: this site is for young readers, parents and librarians. It contains great children’s books, reviews and information
Nosy Crow: this award-winning publisher produces books for a wide age range from colourful board books to teen reads and has drawn in a great mix of well-known authors and illustrators (including the illustrator of the Gruffalo, Axel Scheffler) as well as some wonderful new talent. They are especially good at creating innovative, multimedia, highly interactive apps for tablets and smart phones that aren’t just existing books squashed onto phones. They are specially created to take advantage of the devices, in order to tell stories and provide information to children in new and engaging ways.
Poetry Line: this free interactive poetry website for primary school children and their teachers produced by the CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education) features famous poets and their poetry, fantastic film footage, teaching resources and ideas.
The Reading Agency: a charity with a mission to inspire more people to read more by working in partnership with other organisations, particularly libraries, and by leading and developing innovative research on reading
Reading Groups for Everyone: the place where anyone can come to find information about reading groups in their area. Where people who are running reading groups can find support, resources and evidence, plus offers and events their group can benefit from. And where everyone can learn more about the many ways reading groups can make a difference to people and their communities
Reading Zone: This site supports teachers and librarians in helping to grow children as readers. Their free resources include book recommendations, extracts, new titles and author information.
Stories from the Web: membership is available on a subscription basis to Library Authorities within the UK. You can check and see if your library is a member, if so you can ask them for the secret user name and password. The site is is divided into 3 different categories of readers – aged 0-7, 7-11, 11-16 years and is all about books, reading and creative writing
Who Next Guide : an online version of the popular guide to children’s fiction designed to help young people explore the world of reading and discover their next book to read, produced by LISU at Loughborough University
UK Children’s Books : this is the new home of The Word Pool book review site which was started in 1999 but its owners have now retired so the material is now contained here. Reviews are divided by topic rather than by age and some of the books are no longer available new, but they are well worth searching out secondhand or in libraries If you are looking for an author to give talks and interviews, run workshops and visit schools this site also offers a link to contactanauthor.co.uk. There is also a useful section on reluctant readers, and information and advice for aspiring writers
(Updated by Denise Reed 21st June 2018)