disclosure: we were sent both books for the purpose of review, however, our comments remain our own honest thoughts.
As you will know from reading my blog I am passionate about reading and about spending quality time with my son encouraging his love of books. We spend a lot of time reading at home and borrowing books from the library.
We were thrilled to be asked by the lovely people at Orion Children’s Books if we’d like to take a look at a couple of their Early Reader books which have just been published. Their Early Reader books are aimed at children 5 years+, but I read all sorts of things with my son (now 3 and half years) so was keen to see how these books would go down with him.
We started with Poppy the Pirate Dog’s new Shipmate by Liz Kessler.
The book is 78 pages long so I thought we’d probably read a couple of chapters at a time. As normal he proved me wrong. He was captivated from the start and loved the illustrations by Mike Phillips. He sat beside me on the sofa, eagerly listening and laughing at the pictures as the story unfolded, and remained like that until the very last page. I was impressed with him and the story itself for holding his attention.
Without ruining the whole story for you, Poppy is a lovable Pirate Dog Dalmatian who gets rather lonely when her family leaves for work and school. She loves being a pirate and having hidden treasure to find, but she has no one to be her shipmate. Her family tells her they are getting her a little brother to keep her company, she gets rather excited until she discovers who her new shipmate is. The rest of the story follows Poppy and how she deals with the new arrival. There is a happy ending.
It’s a lovely read, with colourful illustrations and if this book can hold his attention now, then I have high hopes for the future as he begins to read himself.
Our next Early Reader is Algy’s Amazing Adventures in the Arctic by Kaye Umansky.
I put this in my son’s bedtime reading pile this evening to see if, again, we could hold his attention for the 77-page read. Again, he sat, enthralled with both the story and the illustrations, this time by Richard Watson. He laughed and really interacted with the story as it unfolded. Again, I was impressed.
Algy has an amazing garden shed! It transports him and his best friend Cherry on wonderful adventures. This time round Cherry brings her younger brother Brad along – Algy is not impressed. Through the garden shed, they enter a winter wonderland in the Arctic. Again, I don’t want to give the whole storyline away, I will just say that Brad goes up greatly in Algy’s estimations by the end of their adventure with some comic moments along the way.
Both paperback books are priced at £4.99 (2013 price) and I think they are great value for money, lovely stories that young children will love. We’ll certainly be keeping our eyes out for more in this range of Early Reader books.
This sounds like a brilliant book, POD (aka Poppy!) would love it 🙂
They are lovely, nice stories. I was really quite impressed.
Wow! I can’t believe he’s learning to read already! Mine play Reading Eggs, but they’re both just starting to learn a few sounds, they can’t read more than Yes or No – and that’s purely due to playing games 😀
Oh dear is that how it comes across? No he can’t read himself yet, I read to him, but I was surprised how well an Early Reader book aimed at 5+ could hold his attention x
Oh no, that makes far more sense – it’s me reading it wrong. I did think it was incredibly advanced because it’s not even an easy book – there are tons of words on each page! 😀
No worries, although one of Monkey’s friends can read a bit – well ahead of the game.
No worries, although one of Monkey’s friends can read a bit – well ahead of the game!
these look great, I love a good story and illustration’s that help the story along, 🙂
they are lovely books