Bookmark Reading Charity’s Rocket Pack 8: Animals 

The Spring term Bookmark Reading Rocket Pack is underway! Our Rocket Packs are part of our packages for schools, to support our vision: to help every child read and to build a whole school reading culture in primary schools. 

Accompanied by an Inspiration Pack which contains two assemblies, a whole class activity and a whole-school reading challenge, we deliver high-quality and diverse reading material to our Silver, Gold and Platinum Partner Schools, to promote an inclusive and engaging reading environment for children. 

This Animal themed Rocket Pack, curated by Hannah Gold, is our 8^th Rocket Pack – so far, we’ve sent over 17,591 books to over 265 schools! 

Hannah’s journey as an author

Hannah has been a professional author since 2021, when she got her first book deal. But she’s loved writing ever since she was a young girl. She said ​“it was a real dream come true when I finally saw my debut book, The Last Bear, in the shops!”

Hannah is the author of The Last Bear, The Lost Whale, Finding Bear and her latest book, Turtle Moon. The Last Bear became an inspirational, international bestseller on release and was the winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award; and The Lost Whale was the winner of the Edward Stanford Children’s Travel Book of the Year. Her books have sold over 300,000 copies alone in the UK and been translated into twenty-seven languages. 

Writing about the natural world

Hannah grew up in a family where books, animals and the beauty of the outside world were ever present, and is passionate about writing stories that share her love of the planet. As someone who enjoys ​“long walks in the countryside”, she said it ​“was a logical choice to make nature a huge part of [her] stories and hopefully inspire other people to love it [too]”. 

“Animals are such a huge part of my heart and since all publishing advice tells you to write about what you love, then it made sense to write about animals!”

Taking us behind the scenes of Hannah’s writing process, she said she always starts with the animal protagonist, which then heavily influences where the story is set. From leatherback turtles in Costa Rica, to polar bears in the Arctic, Hannah chooses ​“locations [she’s] visited so [she] can get an in-person flavour of the place – temperature, noises, scents, smells”.

Inspiring young readers

Hannah said that she wanted to capture the connection between young people and animals, as this ​“instinctive bond” is something she feels passionate about. She stated, ​“I love nothing more than hearing from readers that they have loved my books, particularly if they are the first books they’ve fallen in love with”. 

Hannah chose nature as the key theme for out latest Rocket Pack because she wanted to share her love of nature with young readers. She said: ​“I hope my stories act as a doorway into all the wonder and magic of the natural world”. Through her stories, Hannah wants to inspire action and a ​“deeper appreciation of the world around you”. 

Having the ability to inspire excitement and emotion, Hannah claims stories are ​“far more effective in engaging hearts than trying to get your head around hard to understand facts and figures… [by injecting stories] with friendship, emotion and peril, suddenly those words begin to carry deeper significance”.

Hannah believes that young readers should have control over what they want to read – ​“let them be the gatekeepers of their reading decisions”. Whether that’s audiobooks, recipes, or acting out scenes from a book, there are many ways for children to engage in reading and storytelling. 

Reading for pleasure

The joy of reading is at the heart of what we do here at Bookmark – Hannah shares the same passion for reading and storytelling, highlighting that it has the power to change lives. 

She said: ​“Books are like magical boxes – you step inside them and can be transported to the far side of the world, outer space or the depths of the ocean. They stoke imagination, build empathy, show different perspectives and build you up from the inside out. Without books our inner world would be very different, and as our inner world shapes our outer world, it means the world would be very different too.

Hannah Gold’s nature-inspired storytelling makes our 8^th Rocket Pack a powerful tool to spark curiosity and a love for reading. With over 17,000 books delivered so far, we’re excited to see even more children discovering the magic of stories and the wonders of the natural world.