October Books have wonderful partnerships with local Southampton schools and some beyond the city boundary.  These connections are particularly important to us as we wish to help inspire children in the wonder of reading and all the riches gained.

We are part of a network of local schools who wish to explore ideas together to increase literacy and inspire local children in the love of books and reading. We are also a partner with University of Southampton’s fantastic Reading Buddies Scheme, where university and college students buddy up with pupils to read together regularly.

We are very happy to meet up and talk about your needs and creative ideas, so please do contact us if you would like to work with us or know more by emailing Suzanne@octoberbooks.org.

Our Offering -

  • We offer 20% DISCOUNT for all orders of 15 or more books.  These books are delivered FREE of charge to your school.

  • We put on book fairs in local schools, a percentage of the sales go to the school, the money we make helps the shop do all it does in the local community 

  • We order and provide a limited number of World Book Day books to local schools for FREE.

  • We can connect you to other schools in the area so you can share ideas and resources.

  • We can link you to local authors for school visits and other events.

  • Our selection of books are chosen by our local community. teachers and pupils. We can recommend titles to schools from our diverse range

  • We offer a creative connection to a community business and can host projects in the shop for pupils to engage in, for example, in the past pupils have written poems for our social media and taken over a shelf in the shop.

Why Buy Books from Us

Schools often choose to buy their books from us as they want to support Southampton’s Independent bookshop, a bookshop that is community inspired and owned.  Many schools also want to champion us for our environmental initiatives and principles which include having solar panels, having a cleaning product refillery and purchasing goods and services from other local suppliers.