Little Lever School

What is Reading Routes?

Reading Routes offers our students the chance to select and read books that have been selected by all our staff in school. It provides an opportunity to discuss and read in school and promote independent reading from all students at home. Find out more in the video below;

Students can choose from up to 30 books in their year group split across 6 genres. They will learn about a new ‘Genre Route’ each half term and be given another set of books to choose from.

Each week students have one dedicated lesson to support their reading. Here they can share their reading with their teacher and peers, learn about the context behind the texts, and discuss the themes and messages each book contains.

Our students have been set a challenge to read at least one book from each genre. They track their reading progress using the Reading Route Maps (see below). After that, they are free to explore any genre in as much depth as they want. The more they read, the more achievements they will be rewarded for.

Year 7 Reading Route Map Year 8 Reading Route Map

Reading Routes News: Autumn Term

Reading Routes Raffle

For every book that a student reads in a term, they get a ticket to the raffle. Autumn term’s winners for the Reading Routes raffle will take home some Amazon vouchers to treat themselves to something over Christmas (maybe some more books!). Remember for the Spring Term, the more books you read, the more tickets you get.

Our Epic Voyagers

Congratulations to these students have completed their first “Genre Route” and read all 5 books. A massive achievement and great start to the scheme! Can they do it for every route and unlock the rare LEGENDARY EXPLORER achievement?

The 100 Club

7P1 were the first class in the school to read 100 books and join the Little Lever Reading Routes “100 CLUB”. Well done guys!

Autumn Term 2, Year 7: Comedy

The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Raúf

There used to be an empty chair at the back of my class, but now a new boy called Ahmet is sitting in it. He’s eight years old (just like me), but he’s very strange. He never talks and never smiles and doesn’t like sweets – not even lemon sherbets, which are my favourite!

Witch Watch by Sibéal Pounder

Tiga Whicabim loves her new life in the witchy, glitzy, black and white world of Sinkville. Now, suddenly, colour has started seeping back into Ritzy City – first there was a green apple in the middle of the road, and then Miss Heks reappeared in a garish orange dress.

Tiga is very suspicious but Miss Heks is only the tip of a very witchy iceberg. As Tiga, Peggy and Fluffanora soon discover, all the Big Exit witches are back! And they want to destroy Sinkville once and for all. As Aggie Hoof hides in a cupboard, Tiga, Fluffanora and Peggy race to save Sinkville and end up finding an unlikely ally in Felicity Bat, whose irritatingly excellent witchcraft is exactly what they need.

The Ice Monster by David Walliams

When Elsie, an orphan on the streets of Victorian London, hears about the mysterious Ice Monster – a woolly mammoth found at the North Pole – she’s determined to discover more…

A chance encounter brings Elsie face to face with the creature, and sparks the adventure of a lifetime – from London to the heart of the Arctic!

Heroes come in all different shapes and sizes in David Walliams’ biggest and most epic adventure yet!

The Falcon’s Malteser by Anthony Horowitz

When the vertically-challenged Johnny Naples entrusts Tim Diamond with a package worth over three million pounds, he’s making a big mistake. Tim Diamond is the worst detective in the world. Next day, Johnny’s dead, Tim feels the heat, and his smart younger brother, Nick, gets the package and every crook in town on his back!

When a dwarf comes into the office and leaves a package, Tim Diamond, the world’s worst private-detective, is faced with his toughest case yet. The office is ransacked and the package is found to contain simply a box of Maltesers. Who was the dwarf and why was he murdered shortly after his visit?

Dog Zombie Rules by Liz Pichon

Here’s my EXCELLENT PLAN to make MY band the BEST band in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD! How hard can it be? (Very.) Right now I’m going to:

1. Write more songs. (Not about teachers.)

2. Make a SPECTACULAR music video. (Easy.)

3. Get some sleep. (Tricky when you’re being kept awake by LOUD NOISES)

4. Annoy Delia. (Nothing to do with the band, but always FUN.)

Written in diary form Full of Tom’s doodles and pictures & his amazing sense of humour. Perfect for anyone who loves to laugh themselves silly.

Autumn Term 2, Year 8: Adventure

The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson

All 12-year-old Marinka wants is a friend. A real friend. Not like her house with chicken legs. Sure, the house can play games like tag and hide-and-seek, but Marinka longs for a human companion. Someone she can talk to and share secrets with.

But that’s tough when your grandmother is a Yaga, a guardian who guides the dead into the afterlife. It’s even harder when you live in a house that wanders all over the world . . . carrying you with it. Even worse, Marinka is being trained to be a Yaga. That means no school, no parties – and no playmates that stick around for more than a day.

Boy 87 by Elle Fountain

A young refugee crosses continents in this timely, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel of survival.

Shif has a happy life, unfamiliar with the horrors of his country’s regime. He is one of the smartest boys in school, and feels safe and loved in the home he shares with his mother and little sister, right next door to his best friend. But the day that soldiers arrive at his door, Shif knows that he will never be safe again–his only choice is to run.

Facing both unthinkable cruelty and boundless kindness, Shif bravely makes his way towards a future he can barely imagine.

The Colour of the Sun by David Almond

One hot summer morning, Davie steps boldly out of his front door. The world he enters is very familiar – the little Tyneside town that has always been his home – but as the day passes, it becomes ever more mysterious.

A boy has been killed, and Davie thinks he might know who is responsible. He turns away from the gossip and excitement and sets off roaming towards the sunlit hills above the town.

As the day goes on, the real and the imaginary start to merge, and Davie knows that neither he nor his world will ever be the same again.

Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean

Every time a lad came fowling on the St Kilda stacs, he went home less of a boy and more of a man. If he went home at all, that is…

In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys are put ashore on a remote sea stac to harvest birds for food. No one returns to collect them. Why? Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they have been abandoned to endure storms, starvation and terror. And how can they survive, housed in stone and imprisoned on every side by the ocean?

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

In London, 1872, a man named Phileas Fogg makes a bet with his friends that he can travel across the entire planet in eighty days. The wager? More than half his sizable fortune – and the exact same amount of money that was stolen from a nearby bank a day earlier.

Fogg hastily departs in the company of Passepartout, his personal attendant, on a journey that will take the two men all over the wide world by way of every known means of transportation. Little does Fogg know that a sly detective trails his every globetrotting step.

Autumn Term 1, Year 7: Horror

The Rise of Wolves by Kerr Thomson

Living on a remote Scottish island, Innis is no stranger to nature in its rawest form. But a wolf? Wolves became extinct in Scotland centuries ago. This tale of conflict between ancient traditions and contemporary technology features a gripping plot, stunning setting, great characters, and an underlying theme of loyalty to family and friends.

The Enemy by Charlie Higson

A jaw-dropping zombie horror series for teens. Everyone over the age of fourteen has succumbed to a deadly zombie virus and now the kids must keep themselves alive.

When the sickness came, every parent, police officer, politician – every adult fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry.

Only children under fourteen remain, and they’re fighting to survive.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

On a trip to Transylvania, Jonathan Harker stays at an eerie castle owned by Count Dracula. When strange things start to happen, and the count escapes to London, Harker realizes that he and his friends are in grave danger.

Silver Eyes by Scott Cawthon

Ten years after the horrific murders at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza that ripped their town apart, Charlie – whose father owned the restaurant – and her childhood friends reunite on the anniversary of the tragedy and find themselves at the old pizza place which had been locked up and abandoned for years.

Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan

Darren goes to a banned freak show with his best mate Steve. It’s the wonderfully gothic Cirque Du Freak where weird, frightening half human/half animals appear who interact terrifyingly with the audience. Darren – a spider freak – ‘falls in love’ with Madam Octa – an enormous tarantala owned by Mr Crepsley. Darren determines to steal the spider so that he can train it to perform amazing deeds. But his daring theft goes horribly wrong and Darren finds himself having to make a bargain with a creature of the night.

Something out of the ordinary is set against the background of children’s normal lives to chilling effect. Atmospheric, funny, realistic, moving and… terrifying.

Autumn Term 1, Year 8: Science Fiction

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Katniss Everdeen voluntarily takes her younger sister’s place in the Hunger Games: a televised competition in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to fight to the death. In a dystopian future, the totalitarian nation of Panem is divided into 12 districts and the Capitol.

Dog Man Unleashed by Dav Pilkey

Dog Man, the newest hero from the creator of Captain Underpants (a policeman with the head of a dog, thanks to innovative surgical procedures), is still learning a few tricks of the trade. Petey the cat is out of the bag, and his criminal curiosity is taking the city by storm. Something fishy is going on! Can Dog Man unleash justice on this ruffian in time to save the city, or will Petey get away with the purr-fect crime?

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking out of the pages of twelve-year-old Percy Jackson’s textbooks and into his life. And worse, he’s angered a few of them. Zeus’s master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Now, he and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus’s stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus.

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

In a dangerous future, huge motorized cities hunt, attack and fight each other for survival. As London pursues a small town, young apprentice Tom is flung out into the wastelands, where a terrifying cyborg begins to hunt him down.