Secret Science

Dara Ó Briain
Scholastic, £12.99 
ISBN: 9781407188140

Dara Ó Briain leads young readers through the science of everyday life using his scientific expertise and sharp sense of humour, alongside some great illustrations. I asked a couple of Year 7 self-confessed reading-phobics to try it out for me. Whilst they didn’t read it all, they both returned it the next day with glowing praise. Stock your primary and secondary libraries with this fantastic book. It’s funny, engaging and interesting. It may just be exactly what your library is missing.

Dr Bill Wilkinson is a science teacher in an all-boys school in Bath

I really like the bubble writing - it made me feel that this was a book written for me rather than for adults. I read it in one day. It was stuffing my head full of information but it didn’t feel like it. 

James, Year 9

How to Own the Room: Women and the art of brilliant speaking

Viv Groskop
Bantam Press, £12.99 
ISBN: 9781787631120

Viv Groskop uses a wide range of examples of women who speak in public, and recognises that “happy high status is the single most important thing about being a strong public speaker”. This is a helpful concept for women to understand; as a leadership coach, I know that lack of self-belief is one of the biggest limiting factors for many women. This book helps to tackle emotions such as these head on. Each chapter has public-speaking exercises and lessons that cover everything from body language to breathing, developing the right mindset, planning the content, delivering challenging information
and beating the anxiety that every public speaker experiences at some level or other.

Ruth Golding is a head of school at Tor Bridge High, Plymouth