Listening Books have recently added 11 new books to the streaming service for London schools (more to follow in September). The new books available are:
We are Britain by Benjamin Zephaniah – KS2 7+, English
Cutting-edge performance poet Benjamin Zephaniah has written poems about 13 children from all over Britain who come from a whole range of different backgrounds. This is the ryming, rapping, rhythmic way to learn about Britain in the 21st Century!
Looking After Louis by Lesley Ely – KS2 7+, English and Citizenship
'There's a new boy at school called Louis. Louis sits next to me and I look after him. He's not quite like the rest of us. Sometimes I wonder what he's thinking about. He often just sits and stares at the wall. If I ask him what he's looking at he says, 'Looking at' and carries on looking.' This introduction to the issue of autism shows how - through imagination, kindness, and a special game of football - Louis' classmates find a way to join him in his world. Then they can include Louis in theirs. Winner of the NASEN TES Special Education Needs Children Award.
Stardust from Space by Monica Grady – KS2 7+, Science
Look up at the night sky, away from city lights, and watch as the stars appear. These pinpricks of light are giant balls of burning gas, millions and millions and millions of kilometres away. So far away that it takes the light thousands of years to reach us. This audiobook, published in collaboration with the Natural History museum, looks at stardust in space - the substance that made the pleats, that built the Moon, the stars, the comets, the meteorites and the asteroids - and ask what this dust is and where its journey started.
The Island that Moved by M Hooper – KS2 10+, Geography
Take one small island. Beautiful. Remote. Explorable. Then follow it on a journey. Where has it come from? Where is it heading? How fast is it travelling? This audiobook tracks one very small piece of the Earth's crust through time and space, introducing the ideas of plate tectonics to young listeners.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – KS4 14+, English
Obsessed by creating life itself, Doctor Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life using electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker...
Zoom by Simon Armitage – KS4 14+, English
The first collection of poetry from an award winning poet. This audiobook features `It ain't what you do it's what it does to you' and other poems included for study at GCSE. CONTAINS SOME STRONG LANGUAGE.
An Inspector Calls by J.B Priestley - KS4 14+, English
This classic of British theatre opens with the engagement party of Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft, son of a prosperous businessman, in the imaginary city of Brumley. Into these celebrations enters Inspector Goole, who announces an unpleasant suicide: a young woman named Eva Smith has swallowed disinfectant and died. One by one he implicates all of the party guests in her death. But who is responsible?
Hobson’s Choice by Harold Brighouse - KS4 14+, English
'Hobson's Choice' (the title coming from the expression 'Hobson's choice' meaning no choice at all), set in Salford in 1880, is a comedy based around the battle of wills between a hard-headed cobbler and his defiant daughter. Henry Hobson has three daughters, good intentions and a fondness for the Moonraker's Inn. Maggie Hobson, the eldest daughter, has a head for business, a will of her own and won't take any nonsense - especially from her father. When Maggie strikes an unusual partnership with a lowly bootmaker, sparks fly. This play is recommended by OCR for study at GCSE.
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – A-level 16+, English
Clarissa Dalloway is civilised - without the ostentation of a socialite, but with enough distinction to attract them to her parties. She finds excess offensive, but surrounds herself with the highest quality and has an abhorrence for anything ugly or awkward. We spend a day with Clarissa as she interacts with servants, her children, her husband, and even an ex-lover.
Silas Marner by George Eliot – A-level 16+, English
After he is wrongly accused of a crime and expelled from his community, weaver Silas Marner becomes a miser and a recluse. A strange sequence of events, and the appearance of a small child, transforms his life and awakens him to the redemptive power of love.
Granny Scarecrow by Anne Stevenson – A-Level 16+, English
The poetry in this audiobook is full of ideas, but as always, Stevenson approaches them by looking intently at small things and seemingly insignificant events. In creating a poetry of acute psychological insight, she has managed to be incisive as well as entertaining.
The full list is available as below: