For our full 2022-23 SJF recommended book list, please click here. Thank you. 

THINKER: My Puppy Poet and Me

Eloise Greenfield

Won as Highly Commended in CLLiPPA Award and nominated for the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal 2019.

Thinker isn't just an average puppy. He's a poet. So is his owner, Jace, and together they turn the world around them into verse. There's one thing they can't share, though: Thinker isn't allowed to go to school. That is, until Pets' Day. But the puppy poet finds it surprisingly hard to keep quiet...

Seven-year-old Jace and his puppy Thinker are poets, putting everything they do into verse, from going to the park and philosophising to playing ball. One day they'll have the whole world figured out. For now, though, Thinker has to keep quiet in public, and he can't go to school with Jace - he might recite a poem, and then Jace's friends will say he's weird. But when Pets' Day comes, and Thinker is allowed into the classroom at last, he finds it harder than he expected to keep his rhyming skills a secret.

"Eloise Greenfield's poems in 'Thinker' dance joyfully upon the page as they inspire confidence and authenticity in readers old and young. These are poems about love, belonging, and the rewards of sharing our gifts with the world - all brought to life by the delicately rich artwork of Ehsan Abdollahi." Victoria Adukwei Bulley, National Poetry Day Ambassador

Running On Empty

S. E. Durrant 

AJ's grandfather has always been the one to keep his unusual family together, so when he dies things start to unravel at the edges. AJ is worried about his parents but they don't really seem to notice. In order to deal with his grief and to keep his anxiety at bay, AJ does what he and his grandfather did best: running. Round and round the Olympic Park, aiming for the cross country trials. Running to escape, AJ only seems to be heading ever closer to disaster.

From the author of Little Bits of Sky and Talking to the Moon, Running On Empty is a beautiful book about false starts and emotional journeys, with hope as the ultimate finishing line.

Lyrical, moving and realistic, SE Durrant's Running on Empty is about the struggle of an 11-year-old carer who is starting secondary school and wants to run like Usain Bolt. With a rich and diverse cast, it sings." - Sunday Times

"Running on Empty is one of the best children's novels of the year." - Express

"Beautiful writing about family, loss, dreams and small pleasures that packs a real emotional punch." - The Bookseller

"I absolutely love this book!...it's a light-hearted, tender book, as warm and funny as AJ himself." - Official Jacqueline Wilson Magazine

"Running on Empty is a deeply moving story of one young carer's struggle to keep his family together... It is beautifully written and thought provoking. A really special book." - North Somerset Teachers' Book Award

"AJ's situation is described with powerful realism, and yet with the very lightest of touches. He is essentially a young carer, whose parents have learning difficulties, but there is never a sniff of a stereotype or call for pity. Durrant makes important points about avoiding assumptions with huge subtlety, sensitivity and humour. Convincing, uplifting and immensely readable." - BookTrust