About us

Background
The origins of the company date back to the early 1960s with the founding of Children's Book Centre in London, which was to become the largest children's book shop in the UK, with the express purpose to make the wealth of good quality children's books more available to the public. This specialisation in children's books and its purpose has stayed alive during four decades and through many changes. From 1979 the company has traded as Baker Books in Cranleigh, Surrey and in 1989 it concentrated exclusively on distributing a school book club. In 1992 the Company started its own club, independent of any one publisher and specialising in supplying international schools overseas. Now with the Funfare, Book Zone and My Word pupil catalogues the club is distributed to schools throughout the UK and to over 100 other countries.

School Book Club
The purpose of the Baker Books school book club is to provide leisure reading for children via the school. The school distributes the colourful pupil catalogues, children and their parents select the books they want, the school places the order and when the books are delivered distributes them to the children. Many of the books are at discounted prices and the school receives a proportion of the order in free books which they can choose from a selection of over 1000 books in the Teachers’ Choice catalogue.

Book Selection
We select the best children’s books that are published in the UK so that children (and parents) will have a positive experience with the books they choose from our catalogues. By providing the right kind of book we believe that children develop reading skills through their own enthusiasm for what they are reading. We try to select books with good quality writing and illustration that will lead children into new areas of interest and experience. We want children to enjoy books and to establish a regular reading habit that will help achieve a broad and successful education.