Booklist: the books your class needs this year
The screen where the school publishes the official list of books and supplies for your class.
The booklist is the shopping list for your class. Before term starts, the school publishes what every learner in your class is expected to have: the books, the exercise books and the supplies. Open it from Booklist in the sidebar.
You do not have to remember it and you do not have to guess. The list is on the screen, in a numbered table, one row per book. Several lists can be published at once — a first term and a second term, for example — so if you see more than one card, read the term written under the title before you buy anything.
A parent sees exactly the same screen. The only difference is that a parent first picks which child to look at, then sees that child’s class list.
Read the booklist in three steps
From opening the page to knowing what to buy.
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Step 1
Open Booklist
Tap Booklist in the sidebar. The page opens on the lists published for the class or classes you belong to.
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Step 2
Check the class and the term
Each card names the class and the term under its title, and carries a Published badge. Read both lines before you start.
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Step 3
Work down the table
One numbered row per book, with the title, the author and the publisher, plus any file the school attached to download.
What each column of the table is for
The columns answer the three questions you ask at a bookshop counter.
Title and author
The first two columns are the ones that matter. The title is the name printed on the cover; the author is the name on the same cover. When you type either into a search engine, add your level — a Second Year list and a Third Year list often share a title and do not share the contents.
Publisher
The publisher is the company that printed the book. It matters because two publishers print books with the same title and different exercises. If a row shows a dash, the school has not written one down, so use the title and the author to identify the book.
Files
The last column is not a price. It is the files the school attached to that line: a downloadable copy, a summary, a corrected table. Each file shows its name and its size — a typical entry reads Reader 3 – pages 1 to 40 (2.4 MB). Tap a file name to save it, which is useful on a phone with limited data.
Books with a dash in the Files column have nothing to download. That does not mean they are optional: the school still expects you to have them, and you buy them like any other book.
From the list to the shop, and what it costs
The booklist names the books. The library tells you the price and sells them.
The list carries no prices
Be clear about this: the booklist is the school’s official list, not a quote. No amount is printed against a title, because the school publishes what your class needs and leaves the price to the shops. If you want a figure before you go shopping, the place to look is the Library.
Buying a book that is for sale online
When a book from your list is stocked in the school library, open Library, search for its title or its author, and read the price shown on its card — a typical entry looks like 7 500 XAF. Press Buy now, pay, and the book opens for you straight away. Books the library gives away free are marked Free and can be opened without paying.
Not every book on the list will be there. The library holds what the school has chosen to stock, and a textbook list often names titles from several publishers. Buy those from your usual bookshop, keeping the title, the author and the publisher from the table in front of you.
Keep the list for next year
Many classes reuse a large part of the list from one year to the next. Take a photo of the table when you shop, and check with the class before buying again in September: a school republishes the list each year and it is the version you should follow.
Where to go next
Two pages that turn the list into books on your phone.
Booklist questions
Asked by families a few days before term starts.
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It says no booklist available yet. What does that mean?
Your school has not published a list for your class yet. Lists are usually prepared in the weeks before term, so check again a little later. If term has already started and the message is still there, ask the school office which class the list should be attached to.
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How much do I need to budget for the booklist?
The booklist does not carry prices, so no total is shown on it. Add up the books yourself, then check the Library: anything stocked there shows its price on the card — a typical title runs at a few thousand XAF. Books the library does not stock are priced by the shops, so ask before you travel.
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I am a parent. How do I see my other child’s list?
At the top of the booklist, pick your child from the row of buttons. Each button shows the child’s name, their matricule number and their class. The list underneath then becomes the one for the child you chose, and stays that way while you look at it.
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A line has a dash in the Files column. Is that book optional?
No. The dash means the school attached no file to that book, not that the book is optional. Everything on the published list is what your class is expected to have. Where a file is attached, it is usually a summary, a correction or a partial extract, not the whole book.