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What is The Reader Bookshelf?

The Reader Bookshelf is a carefully curated collection of literature for adults and children, exploring a different theme each year. The Bookshelf includes a diverse range of stories, plays and poems.

This year’s theme ‘Wonder’ is about being bold, being curious, being open, not least in our reading choices.

Why 'Wonder'?

This energising, hopeful theme goes to the heart of Shared Reading. ‘Wonder’ is about surprise and encountering other points of view. ‘Wonder’ will remind us to notice the changing seasons and the natural world, as we open the door to new experiences and connections at Calderstones Park. ‘Wonder’ is walking into the Storybarn and seeing a giant robot and a hot-air balloon; it’s about roaming the park with the Storyhunters, spotting clues and having adventures. We’ll also be thinking about what happens when wonder runs to excess, or when it runs out. ‘Wonder’ can be about the very big, or the infinitesimally small; the extraordinary and the unknown.

We hope you’ll join us as we read though our Wonder Bookshelf this year, and discover what ‘wonder’ means to you.

Throughout the year, The Reader will be offering events and resources to guide you through an enriching reading experience with our new Bookshelf. You can buy some of the books from this year’s Bookshelf in our online store or in our Calderstones Bookshop.

Adult's Bookshelf

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Foster by Claire Keegan
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
The Fat Lady Sings by Jacqueline Roy
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology edited by Czeslaw Milosz
She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo
The Conference of the Birds by Farid Ud-Din Attar
Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie
The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Children's Bookshelf

Alive Again by Ahmadreza Ahmadi
Twenty Questions by Mac Barnett
The Something by Rebecca Cobb
This Is Not A Book by Jean Jullien
Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Skellig by David Almond
The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow
Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
A Whale of a Time ed. by Lou Peacock
Wonder: The Natural History Museum Poetry Book ed. by Ana Sampson

Summer Wellbeing Workshop: Katherine Jamie

10 August, 1pm
An uplifting afternoon of wellbeing and light inspired by Scottish essayist and poet Kathleen Jamie. Published in 2019, Jamie’s new essay collection Surfacindetails visits to archaeological sites where she mined her own memories – of her grandparents and youthful travels – to explore what surfaced and what reconnects us to our past. 

Book here

Autumn Wellbeing Workshop: Claire Keegan

19 October, 1pm

Join us for an uplifting afternoon of wellbeing and light inspired by Irish writer Claire Keegan. Published in 2010, Keegan’s novella Foster details the warmth and affection a County Wexford girl finds in her foster parents and how she blossoms in their care. But in a house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers how fragile her idyll is.

Book here

Frankenstein Deep Read

26 October-23 November, 1pm

Considered by many to be the first true work of science-fiction, Frankenstein is a haunting, uncanny novel that has captured readers since its publication in 1818. 

Every Saturday for four weeks, we’ll explore Mary Shelley’s enduring investigation into what it means to be truly human.

Free, book here

Autumn Wellbeing Workshop: Joy Harjo

10 November, 1pm

Join us for an uplifting afternoon of wellbeing and light inspired by American poet, musician, and writer, Joy Harjo. First published in 1983 and now considered a classic, She Had Some Horses is a powerful poetic exploration of womanhood, despair, awakenings, power, and love. 

Book here