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Bibliotherapy and the Reading and You Scheme (RAYS)
Chapter seven - Booklist
Kirklees Culture and Leisure Services - March 2010
juliei.walker@kirklees.gov.uk
 Download: Chapter seven - Booklist (PDF: 38kb)
We are often asked for a list of 'approved' books, and we are very reluctant to do so - it is impossible to predict what anyone's response to a book might be. However, here are some books which we have enjoyed using.
- Private - Keep Out, Gwen Grant
The youngest child in a working class Nottinghamshire 1940s family describes her life and adventures - hilarious, and uncompromising in exposing her family's weaknesses.
- Taxi Driver's Daughter, Julia Darling
The effects on an ordinary family of the sudden and unexpected arrest of the mother. A straightforward story, told with care and delicacy.
- Curious incident of the dog in the night-time, Mark Haddon
A teenage boy with Aspergers syndrome tries to make sense of the messy world of adult emotions around him. A detective story which lays bare our frailties, and instructs us how to care for one another.
- Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle
The adventure of being nine years old, the exhilaration of mischief, the drudgery of school, the puzzle of parents - explored in a moving and funny story.
- Carrying the elephant, Michael Rosen
Part of an autobiography, in very short chapters, each one crammed with drama - funny incidents as well as bitter and sad memories.
- Ethel & Ernest, Raymond Briggs
The same wit and skill which created Fungus the Bogeyman, the Snowman and Father Christmas bring us the story of Raymond Briggs' parents' marriage in pictures.
- A winter book
The summer book, Tove Jansson
Short stories from Finland by the creator of the moomins, which explore, in beautiful prose, how we make sense of the world. Stories for adults which children will enjoy.
- Findings, Kathleen Jamie
Reflections on the natural world and our place in it, beautifully written engaging essays.
- The statement, Brian Moore
A gripping hunt, based on true events, through France, by an expert story teller.
- Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
A cleverly and surprisingly constructed story-in-a-story (in a story...)
- Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
The first part of A Scots Quair the story of Christine Guthrie, growing up and maturing in a closely described farming community in North East Scotland in the early years of the 20th century. My book for a desert island...
- Buddha Da, Anne Donovan
A hilarious and moving account of a Glaswegian painter and decorator's discovery of Buddhism and the effects on himself, his wife and his daughter - each in their own voice. Funny and moving and tender.
- The clothes they stood up in, Alan Bennett
A novella which describes with cold eye and sharp wit the devastating effect on a conventional and private couple in contemporary London when a theft leaves them with nothing but the clothes they are wearing.
- The Wedding present, Adele Geras
A Quick Read - a short and charming romance, which does exactly what it says on the cover.
- No dress rehearsal, Marian Keyes
A Quick Read from Ireland (which invented the genre to create stories for adults with poor reading confidence or skills). What happens when you discover you have died and become a ghost. A most satisfying story.
- The telling, Ursula Le Guin
On another world, Sutty, fleeing from the chaos and intolerance of Earth, faces up to a planet government which has outlawed all literature and myth. The most gifted SF writer, whose prose is lucid, entertaining and gripping.
- The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
A joy to read out loud. Precise wit, gentle humour. Perceptive and insightful.
- As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Laurie Lee
A wonderful evocation a time (the 30s). A sense of freedom, innocence and adventure, coupled with realism about that particular era - who could forget the tramp young Laurie Lee meets on his journey to the coast before he boards his boat for Spain?
- Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee
A portrait of life in a Gloucestershire village in the early part of the 20th century. Read it all the way through for a real sense of how life was for a small rural community - meet interesting, eccentric and unforgettable characters.
- Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery
A childhood favourite. Wonderful to re-read as an adult.
- The Young Visiters, Daisy Ashford
Unintentionally funny. A delight to read.
- Room for a Single Lady, Clare Boylan
The story of an impoverished family in the Ireland of the fifties. Meet interesting and eccentric characters when the family decide to let a spare room to 'a single lady' to swell their income.
- To School through the Fields, Alice Taylor
- Boy and Going Solo, Roald Dahl
- The White Darkness and Forever X, Geraldine McCaughrean
- Private Keep Out, Gwen Grant
- Toast, Nigel Slater
- The Flight of the Maidens, Jane Gardam
- The Eyrie and Four Dreamers and Emily, Stevie Davies
- The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
- Precious Bane, Mary Webb
- The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
- Grandmother's Footsteps, Rachel Anderson
- How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff
- Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
- Very Good Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
- All of us, Raymond Carver
Poetry which explores human frailty and weaknesses, describes people at their most vulnerable, and celebrates tenderness and happiness.
- The world's wife, Carol Ann Duffy
A feminist history of the world, of literature and myth - these poems are witty, savage, funny, frightening, stimulating. Start with The Kray Sisters or Mrs Rip van Winkle and you won't be able to put it down.
- Mental fight, Ben Okri
This long poem was prepared as a speech at the turn of the millennium, and is a reflection on finding hope in troubled times. It has been used by groups of people affected by mental illness as a way of enhancing their own hope and understanding.
- Surgically enhanced, Pam Ayres
I am reluctant to say 'must' in relation to books, but this is the essential book for bibliotherapists - funny, honest and with universal appeal.
- The collected, Dorothy Parker
Short stories and sharp verse from a major wit.
- The collected, Roger McGough
Poems from the 1960s until now, playing with language, looking at the world with sympathy, and with sharp comment in among the jokes.
- The rattle bag, Hughes & Heaney
A huge raggle-taggle collection of poems, heaped together - everyone will find something to cherish in this book.
- I found this shirt, Ian McMillan
Short stories, apparently off-the-top-of-his-head reflections and poems which keep you thinking after you have stopped laughing.
- 52 ways of looking at a poem, Ruth Padel
If you want to find out more about poetry, if you want to discover what's going on when you read one, if you want to understand what might be going through a poet's mind as she or he writes, these expert dissections of 52 poems will give you plenty to work on (and help you explain poems to other people!).
- Beside the ocean of time, George Mackay Brown
George Mackay Brown was a master poet and storyteller, using his native Orkney to explore the world. A boy has a series of day dreams which take him through time and across the world.
- Staying Alive and Being Alive, edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books)
- Earth Shattering, edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books)
- From Here to Eternity
- Poem for the Day - One, Two etc, Chatto and Windus
- Poems on the Underground
- The Nation's Favourite Poems (BBC Publications)
- Dart and The Thing in the Gap Stone Stile, Alice Oswald
- Jizzen and The Tree House, Kathleen Jamie
- The Sonnet, edited by Don Paterson
- The Shepherd's Calendar, John Clare
- Cloud Cuckoo Land, Simon Armitage
- The Poem and the Journey, Ruth Padel
- The Works, Pam Eyres
- The Brink, Jacob Polley
- Hard Water and Tilt, Jean Sprackland
- The Collected Poems of George Mackay Brown
- The Boy from the Chemist is Here to see You, Paul Farley
- Public Dream, Frances Leviston
Also anything by Ian Macmillan, Michael Rosen, Roger McGough, Ken Smith,
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