David Attenborough’s natural history books help K Edwards to hook the interest of her secondary biology and chemistry pupils in mid-Wales. Her favourites include Life on Earth and Living Planet (Collins pbk pound;9.99 each).

“Attenborough’s vivid accounts are excellent introductions to many topics, provoking genuine surprise, interest, happy disgust and debate. Students love his anecdotes about pregnant male sea horses, plants that imitate the stench of roting corpses to achieve pollination or vultures that cool down by urinating over their legs. It’s then easy to address the drier curriculum points. Bringing books from home into school elevates science’s status from suffered compulsory subject to something that is appreciated and valued.”

What would you rescue if the school was on fire, and why? We pay pound;40 for each recommendation published. Write to Love It, TESFriday, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1W 1BX. E-mail: friday@tes.co.uk