{"id":257879,"date":"2025-07-12T03:22:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T03:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/257879\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T03:22:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T03:22:12","slug":"top-5-books-for-children-under-eight-chosen-by-truly-johnston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/257879\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 books for children under eight, chosen by Truly Johnston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9781915947734\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Shell Keepers<\/a>\u00a0by Truly Johnston<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9781915947734\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"665\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Shell-Keepers-The-665x1024-1.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-267315\" style=\"width:105px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>(OK, yes, it\u2019s mine \u2013 but it\u2019s a goody!) With themes of heritage, environmental protection and a whole parallel world of tiny people living in shells, this family seaside adventure is a great summer read for children to escape into.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9781915947734\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Shell Keepers<\/a> by Truly Johnston is out now (Chicken House, \u00a37.99).<\/strong> <strong><strong>These titles are available to buy from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/shop\/Bigissue\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Big Issue shop<\/a>\u00a0on Bookshop.org, which helps to support the Big Issue and independent bookshops.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Real stories.\u202fReal impact.\u202fReal change.<\/strong>\u202f<\/p>\n<p>No clickbait. Just trustworthy journalism that gets to the heart of big issues in the UK and beyond. Words drive real change.<\/p>\n<p>If this article gave you something to think about, help us keep doing this work.\u202f\u00a0<br \/><strong><br \/>Support independent journalism from \u00a35 a month.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.bigissue.dsb-fly.net\/the-big-issue-contribution-sj0625\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"250\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SOJ-End-of-article.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-266931\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Shell Keepers\u00a0by Truly Johnston (OK, yes, it\u2019s mine \u2013 but it\u2019s a goody!) With themes of heritage,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,4038,77,4072,7056,9825,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-257879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-childrens-books","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-fiction","12":"tag-from-the-magazine","13":"tag-top-5-books","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114838120214602111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}