The Our Lady of Hartley Bookshop

At Our Lady of Hartley, we firmly believe that every child (and every adult) is a writer. We take full advantage of modern technologies and markets and use these as a way of spreading our stories to as wide an audience as possible. Below, you will find a selection of the books that we have written and published. Enjoy!

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The School Dog: My First Year 

Written by our very own Mr Baldock about our beloved school dog, The School Dog: My First Year tells the tail (ha! tail, you get it?) of a beloved family pet who also happens to work in a school. All he wants is a quiet life – maybe some doggy treats, a belly rub here and there and a tennis ball or two but he has the very strange habit of getting himself into… well let’s call them situations… These diary entries follow this eternally hungry and confused pooch through the first year of his life as he attempts to make sense of the world around him.

A very special thank you to our wonderful PTA who during the 2020 national lockdown (when bookshops and libraries were closed) paid for 218 copies of this book to be printed and spent hours-upon-hours delivering them so that each child within our school community had something original (and personal to OLOH) to read.   

This book can be purchased here.

The Grumpy Teacher   

Written and illustrated by Mr Baldock and the St Clare’s class of 2019-20, this picture book tells the story of how a cunning Year One class managed to warm the heart of the grumpiest teacher in the world. 

This picture book was created as a way of bringing together the talents of a whole class at a time when they were unable to sit in the same room at the same time (which in itself is its own story of how we can overcome adversity when we work as a team). 

We Remember: Stories of WW1 

Introducing our second e-book available on Kindle via Amazon.co.uk

Each child has participated in the creation of the book by writing a story, poem, diary entry or greeting card. We are very excited to be able to share our book with you. The children are very proud of the work that they have produced and we hope that you enjoy reading what they have written as much as the children have enjoyed writing it.

The book is available to buy from the Amazon Kindle Store at the price of £3.99. Those of you with Kindle readers will be able to find the book in the usual way by searching either ‘We Remember’ or ‘Our Lady of Hartley’. However, for those of you who do not have a Kindle reader, the Kindle App can be downloaded for free onto any device (including smartphones and tablets) where the book can be purchased.

If you do purchase the book and enjoy the stories, please leave a review as this will help our school book to reach a wider audience. 

The children are very excited about now being published authors with the possibility of their work reaching a global audience. ​

10% of proceeds will be donated to charity. The remainder of the proceeds will go towards paying for an author visit to the school.

The book is available here.

Experience the Magic of Rhinos

Introducing our very first e-book available on Kindle via Amazon.co.uk

Our Year 4 class have undertaken the Go Givers ‘Make a Difference Challenge’. Democratically, the class chose to try to prevent the unnecessary extinction of the rhinoceros. 

One way in which the class decided to help was to raise money for the Aspinall Foundation. This charity works alongside Port Lympne and Howletts Wild Animal and breads and releases rhinos into the wild. 

To help raise money for this worthwhile charity, the Year 4 class have written a book of poems and short stories entitled, ‘Experience the Magic of Rhinos’ and it is available on the amazon website for the very reasonable price of £2.40. The book is available here.