Book Clubs
Bookmark launched its Comic Book Club in the Spring term of 2023, with the aim of engaging reluctant readers. In the Spring of 2025, we launched our Fact Finding Club, building book buzz through modern, non-fiction texts.
What do our Book Clubs offer?
The Comic Book Club offers graphic novels, scrapbooks and resources for the number of children in your club, a teaching booklet outlining session plans and a weekly subscription to The Phoenix comic magazine.
The Fact Finding Club offers non-fiction texts, display books and resources for the number of children in your club, a teaching booklet outlining session plans and a weekly subscription to First News.
It's obviously a reading-based club, but they don't realise that... it's a secret reading based club!
Engaging disengaged readers
The Comic Book Club pilot was a huge success, with all surveyed teachers confirming that the club effectively engaged disengaged readers. A significant proportion of pupils taking part in their school’s club were in receipt of Pupil Premium (44%) and a further 24% had English as an additional language.
It was really nice to see them enjoy something that they don't normally have.
Providing resources pupils don’t have access to
Both book clubs provide pupils with access to texts that they may not have outside of the club, either at home or at school. Feedback from the Comic Book Club pilot revealed that teachers were unanimous in praising the resources provided by Bookmark, as they helped fill a significant gap. The cost of running the club would have been unaffordable for most schools without this support.
Adding value to the Comic Book Club
3 out of 4 schools surveyed “strongly agreed” that they felt well equipped to deliver their Comic Book Club sessions. In particular the volume, quality and variety of texts were instrumental to the success of the club.
In addition to books, the schools also receive all the resources they will need to run the clubs and the teaching plans. This was highlighted in feedback as elevating the clubs and a key factor in their success.
By providing plans for each session, teachers fed back that it was feasible to run the clubs within their busy weekly scheduled.
By providing plans for each session, teachers fed back that it was feasible to run the club within their busy weekly scheduled.
To find out more about how to use graphic novels in the classroom, read our blog with primary school teacher Jon Biddle.
Tips for teachers on using graphic novels with their classes
Explore teacher, Jon Biddle’s, top tips on bring graphic novels into the classroom.
Read more
Find out more about our programmes
We partner with schools to develop a whole school reading culture and provide one-to-one reading support.
