Little Island Books is an independent press based in Dublin that publishes good books for young minds, from toddlers to teens. They share their insights on buying for the younger folk in your life this Christmas.
We believe that young people deserve good books that respect them as readers, not books that talk down to them. Young people have rich inner lives and they have as much right to great literature as adults do. Little Island exists to fulfil that need.
Young people deserve objects that are beautiful, too. Our books have won awards for illustration and you’ll find on our website book covers by some of Ireland’s foremost graphic artists including Niall McCormack, Lauren O’Neill, Karen Vaughan and Holly Pereira.
We specialise in high quality fiction by Irish writers but we also publish picture books, non-fiction and books in translation. In our 10 years since 2010 we’ve published 100 books, over 40 of which have won or been shortlisted for major Irish and international awards.
For Christmas this year we have some great books to recommend:
For toddlers and little ones: 123 Ireland by Aoife Dooley is an award-winning board book by one of Dublin’s favourite artists. Learn to count with symbols of Ireland: including 1 harp, 5 lamps and 0 snakes!
For kids 3-5: In the Garden by Noelle Smit is a beautiful picture book that follows how a vegetable garden changes and grows from month to month.
It starts with January so it’s a perfect Christmas or New Year’s gift!
For kids 6-8: Dr Hibernica Finch’s Compelling Compendium of Irish Animals by Rob Maguire, with award-winning illustrations by Aga Grandowicz, is a perfect gift book for a young naturist.
For kids 9-11: We just published The Baboon with the Golden Bum, the second book in our series The Free Range Detective Agency by Jed Lynch (illustrated by Stephen Stone).
These are absolutely hilarious stories about a private investigator who happens to be a turkey. Each book contains a postcard pre-addressed to the main character, Seamus the Turkey. Write to him with details of a mystery you want solved and he’ll reply online!
For kids 11-13: The Deepest Breath by Meg Grehan is a gorgeous, warm and reassuring LGBTQ+ themed verse novel about a young girl discovering who she is. It was on the shortlist for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize this year.
For younger teens: Sheena Wilkinson’s acclaimed trilogy Name upon Name, Star by Star and Hope against Hope takes a feminist look at Irish history. The latest book, Hope against Hope, commemorates the centenary of the Partition of Ireland into north and south in 1920-21.
For older teens and adults: Savage Her Reply by Deirdre Sullivan (illustrated by Karen Vaughan) won YA Book of the Year at the recent Irish Book Awards. It’s a fierce feminist retelling of The Children of Lir.
It’s powerful and poetic and it will blow you away. If you haven’t discovered Sullivan yet, she’s one of Ireland’s hottest writing talents and this beautiful hardback is a brilliant gift for any literature lover, teenage or adult.
Enter coupon TOTALLYDUBLIN for 10% off at littleisland.ie
Little Island Books is an independent press based in Dublin that publishes good books for young minds, from toddlers to teens. If you are shopping this Christmas for a young person and you’d like to give them the gift of lovingly produced, high quality Irish books, check out our online shop at littleisland.ie.
