For the past three years we’ve held a CPD event at the bookshop in conjunction with the University of Exeter to discuss the UKLA Book Awards – the only awards where teachers select books they want to share with pupils to inspire a love of books, reading for pleasure and a focus for discussion and extended study. Following the same format as the two previous years, local teachers joined PGCE student teachers, tutors and the CCB schools’ team for lively debate!

This year we looked at the six books shortlisted for the 7-11 age range and after much discussion on the merits of a good book, both The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius and The Explorer by Katherine Rundell emerged as firm favourites. The first is a great adventure story featuring Sally Jones, a gorilla who is also an engineer and can read. The second follows four children who find themselves stranded in the jungle, and their journey to find their way home. We also loved The Wild Robot by Peter Brown, which has a good story line and great illustrations!

The student teachers will cast their votes for the winner, and we at CCB will decide which books will make our Top Titles list for 2020…