Mostly Book Talk

In September 2026 all UK Secondary Schools will receive two copies of the book Scientists Making a Difference by Dr Shini Somara together with a pack of resources. This is a collaboration between publishers What on Earth!, the Gatsby Foundation and Imperial. We talk to teacher Jennifer Marchant who created the school resources to discuss the book, what schools will find in their pack and how they can be used within the science curriculum as well as in careers lessons. There are linked resourc...

Join us talking to Mayo Agard-Olubo about his debut picture book, Kid Rex to the Rescue, illustrated by Diane Ewen. Max's imagination transforms him into the superhero Kid Rex, and he's ready to use his dinosaur powers to battle robots, dragons and even the evil king dust bunny. A fun bedtime story and definitely one for dinosaur fans. Mayo's website can be found here. His BBC Sounds appearance on Margins to the Mainstream can be found here. The books we reviewed were: Auntie's Bangles, by De...

For the National Year of Reading, we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Emma Bell, CEO of Chapter One. Through their volunteer reading partners, Chapter One provide one-to-one reading support to nearly 3,500 children in Birmingham, Bra...

For Part 6 we asked all our interviewees for one thing they would do to address the reading crisis. Properly funded libraries and librarians were unsurprisingly a strong theme, but also a rethink about how we position children's reading - how do we find the space for children to read and support children to experience the power and enjoyment of reading so they find their own routes into reading, and choose to do it. For this series we interviewed the following people (not all feature in...

In this episode we talk with Nadia Shireen about the mad and upredictable world of Grimwood and book five in the series, Rock the Vote! which has recently come out in paperback. Listen in to find out where Nadia gets her ideas from, how she writes, why illustrations are so important and what Titus's best cake would be. Nadia can be found on Instagram here Her Grimwood books can be found here: Grimwood Grimwood: Let the fur fly! Grimwood: Attack of the Stink Monster! Grimwood: Party Anim...

In part 5 we continue looking at what works to support reading for pleasure, focusing more this time on opportunities for authors to engage with readers and the importance of wider family and community involvement and spaces to discover and talk about books. For this series we interviewed the following people (not all feature in every episode): Dapo Adeola - Author and the illustrator of many books including Look Up!, Clean Up!and My Dad is a Grizzly Bear. Sita Brahmachari - Author of many ...

In part 4 we hear more about what we should be doing to address the decline in children’s reading for pleasure. In this episode we focus on approaches in schools and how to involve staff and pupils in creating a reading for pleasure culture. For this series we interviewed the following people (not all feature in every episode): Dapo Adeola - Author and the illustrator of many books including Look Up!, Clean Up!and My Dad is a Grizzly Bear. Sita Brahmachari - Author of many books including Art...