Retold by: Monica Hughes
Illustrator: Adrienne Salgado
Series: First Readers: Read Together Books for Marks & Spencer
Publisher: Exclusive Editions Ltd, 2007
I like many things about this First Readers book series, which has been carried by high-street retailer Marks & Spencer for the past ten or so years. I like the price of books in this series, as at £3 each (they might have gone up a little recently), this is pocket-money price for literature in the UK. The affordability of modern children's literature truly concerns me. We should be encouraging reading, not needing to incur a huge debt to brighten our children's bookshelf.
Books for this age range should be cheap, and they should (my other concern in the wake of national library closures), be accessible. Marks and Spencer sell this range in even their smallest of high-street outposts, and I've also seen the older editions of the range on offer in the nationwide M&S outlets. So First Readers are affordable, very accessible, and usually they are stocked on a nice rotating circular unit, which shows off a nice range of books in the selection- there's plenty of choice in the range.
First Readers are all based on traditional fairy-tales (so for example Little Red Riding Hood, as above, The Three Little Pigs, Puss in Boots etc) and they are retold very concisely (this range makes Ladybird seem incredibly wordy!). On one side of the double page spread there are 5-8 very short sentences for the adult to read aloud, and a reminder sentence (a summary) on the accompanying page for the child to recall. Although the story itself does feel very 'snipped', all the elements of the tale are there, and the story flows appropriately. On this note, some of the tales work better than others; The Three Little Pigs is too condensed (no space for 'and by the hair on my chinny chin chin you can't come in!' catchphrase, but repetitive victor stories such as The Giant Turnip and The GingerBread Man, work well in this format.) The illustrations are okay: they're quite nonchalant but bright enough.
The series 'follows the National Literacy Strategy'; the featured Little Red Riding Hood for example, credits reading consultants Betty Root and Monica Hughes. Thumbs up again for educational value, and certainly my three year old is managing to memorise and recall the story beautifully and engage in the two reading exercise pages at the back of each book. Edie loves the 'can you read the words?' game, as she has memorised the answers and uses the picture clues, likewise the 'answer questions' reading comprehension exercise, including very simple questions such as 'Where did Granny live?' These books support really good reading practice skills, which could be used, as I do, to help prepare the preschooler for reception year learning to read.
My usual bugbear with fairy-tale retellings for this age range, is that they are so overly sanitised, but this First Readers Series, manoeuvres well endings that are not graphic but follow the original enough. In this version of Little Red Riding Hood for example, the wolf does swallow granny and red riding hood whole, but they jump out whole once the woodcutter arrives.
In all, a good, educational, affordable, accessible early years reading scheme; adequate choice in the range, authentic to the stories, 'no frills' narratives.
Author: Cynthia Rylant
Illustrator: Sucie Stevenson
Publisher: Simon Spotlight, 1987, edition featured Aladdin Paperbacks 1990
I know very little about this author (I just looked her up: Cynthia Rylant) and very little about the educational context of this 'ready-to-read' series of books ( Henry and Mudge), but I absolutely love this book, and I'm cherishing passing it on to my children.
Henry and Mudge: The First Book is about a young boy, Henry, who feels lonely. He has no siblings nor friends in his neighbourhood; he asks his parents for a dog. His parents agree, so along comes Mudge, a puppy. This puppy grows into a huge drooling heavy-weight of a dog and a lovely friendship between boy and dog is forged, seemingly impenetrable. There's a humourous 'growing up' moment in the story when we see all the collars Mudge grows out of, before meeting giant Mudge himself. This sweet, charming story is so well written, it reads aloud so effortlessly as an adult, and with its many moments of pause and reflection, it reads easily to the child as well. Bert read the series when four and a half years old, and he was a fair to good reader at the time. It's an ideal book as part of the Summer Reading Challenge, as one of many in an American early years reading scheme.
Now what I especially like about this man and beast relationship, is that it's shown to be reciporcal, so dog Mudge, loves Henry as much as Henry adores Mudge. They spend all their time together, sharing the same bed, smelling each other, lying on each other.
Henry gains confidence through having Mudge, described concisely yet poetically:
Rylant's economy with words is Orwellian. She gets across the idea perfectly, with no unnecessary exposition. As an early reader these books are perfect, very short smart
sentences, interesting vocabulary but most importantly a gripping story. I remember my heart beating in my head reading these books as a child, wondering if Henry will find Mudge once Mudge goes missing in the wood. Rylant sets up this moment of loss and worry so nicely, showing how the landscape suddenly seems big and empty, showing the desperation in Henry as he shouts and shouts for his dog. The pastel watercolour and pen illustrations feel a tiny bit dated, but mainly thanks to dad's handlebar moustache (though admittedly back as a fashion faux pas again currently). Saying this, I like how Sucie Stevenson has captured a sense of flow in the tree detail and the idea of a vast lonely sky with the formation of birds migrating overhead in the Mudge being lost scene.
The ending of the book is also suprisingly solemn, with Rylant reminding the reader about the fear and loss Henry felt when Mudge was missing. As such, this story really stays with children; after reading it yesterday Bert asked if we could get a dog (fairly predictable), recalling how Mudge was Henry's best friend. He said that in the story Henry had learnt how much he loved Mudge, especially when he was gone. Loyalty, and valuing friendship then, is a theme children take from this book.
Author and Illustrator: Jane Hissey
Publisher: Hutchinson's Children's Books 1996, reprinted by Scribblers 2013
My three year old daughter has developed a fear of 'Old Brown' (the owl in Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin). She was telling me today that she doesn't like owls. We got this book out as some owl therapy. 'Hoot' tells the story of a group of cuddly toys in bed at night, who wake to hear an unexplained noise. As the toys ponder what the noise might be, odd socks appear around the room and a soft toy owl in a blue apron flies down from the top of the cupboard. The innovative owl explains that her nest of socks has fallen from the cupboard,
so the other toys help her to raise a new bobble hat nest into the air.
This is a classic Jane Hissey book; soft quiet illustrations with lots of depth and a narrative about kindness and working together. Hissey's work seems if it's time in some respects, sat alongside the more garish, loud children's literature of the 2010s, where subplots are common ( one to please, entertain the parents, another for the children). Hissey's work is more sincere and gag -free; it speaks to the imagination of children so beautifully. There's no exposition as to why the toys 'come to life' , they are just 'real', and I love that. The toys adventure through their days, using props from daily life in a resourceful way. In the process, the answers to everyday phenomena are realised, 'why do we always have so many odd socks lying around?' for example.
Hoot is a book that will captivate the 3-5 year old and Jane Hissey's Old Bear stories in general model imaginative play beautifully, highly recommended.
Author and Illustrator: Emma Chichester Clark
Publisher: HarperCollins children's, 2015
This is the ideal book for parents wanting to explore with their children, what it might feel like or is like when they gain a new sibling. We bought this book for Edie, at 3 years, when gaining her new baby brother George, and the rhetoric of 'it might feel strange, different at first, and we all make mistakes with new things at first' helped us all feel that better prepared ( especially when it came to those first child -to-baby sibling new misadventures!) I very much like the page where mum admits she makes lots of mistakes too, promoting a fantastic dialogue every time between Edie and I, 'so what mistakes DID you make with me, mummy?'
I also like that the little girl in the book, Lily, is given a blue kangaroo toy to cherish by her grandma, and she is typically over zealous with her 'love', paralleling her eagerness with her new brother. New sibling stories tend to fix on jealousy as a first reaction to the new sibling ( the equally lovely book Ever So, Ever So by Kes Gray for example), when in my experience, over-eagerness and interest in the new arrival can often preclude feelings of jealousy and being left-out.
We found this book again very useful tonight in that Bert ( at 5) likes things 'just so' and is worried about doing things 'wrong'. Although essentially this book is about gaining a sibling, the context can easily be broadened to suit a theme of general transition, so 'sometimes things in life change a bit, and as things adjust, we learn.' We even moved the focus tonight on to 'sometimes we try new things ( like washing the blue kangaroo) and we get it wrong ( blue kangaroo covered in talcum powder) but that's okay as parents still love you and problems can always be put right ( blue kangaroo is washable!) This book rates highly then, as a conversation starter, an emotion explorer and promoting a good attitude to transition. It would be a useful book for the collection for anyone wanting to promote discussion with their children about starting school, moving house, or any number of transitional events typical in a preschooler's life. All in all, this is a sweet and cheerful story ( about a little girl and her toy), particularly suitable for the 3-5 year category.
Every Vehicle on the Road
Publisher: Michelin Maps and Guides 2011, created and produced by Blue Sky Publishing
I would like to see these Michelin I-spy books have a true renaissance as for me they're a must-have for pre-schoolers. They are so fun and easy to use and all titles in the range are loved by my 5 and 3 year old. Although not a fan of 'the list' himself, the 'I-spy football stadiums' title always accompanies 7 year old Alf on long car journeys too; the book is really helping build his knowledge of football clubs, their origins and the colour/ design if the kits. He sound like a mini social historian in the back of the car telling me about teams borne from working men's clubs. Many of the titles in the series contain snippets of general knowledge about the spot to accompany the sightings, fabulous for building young people's general knowledge and topic-based interests.
I-spy are spotters guides, with each book containing roughly 120 pictures of things to spot and then tick off. Rare spots related to the title theme gain 50 points, with values decreasing in commonality. In I-Spy 'Every Vehicle on the Road' for example, the 50 point spots are a 'veteran car' (motor vehicles 1885-1905), and UNIMOG, whereas 5 point spots are very commonplace, including a hatchback, van and taxi. Once ticked off and the spot dated, the score can be combined to previous spot scores, with the aim of reaching 1000 points. Once 1000 points have been achieved, the adult can help the child apply for an online I-spy certificate at: www.ispymichelin.com. Each title also has 'cut out corner' coupon which can also be collected (5 needed) in order to apply for 'the Michellin badge' (a very sought after prize in our house).
I've found these books promote using maths (adding scores, knowing values), support vocabulary building, promote greater recognition and understanding of the world, and are an invaluable boredom buster in the car on any journey, not just long ones. The children do tend to need their own copy of the books though, as they're small and can't easily be shared, so they squabble over who gets 'to tick' or who saw the spot and should claim the points etc. We've bought multiple titles of popular books in the series, such as 'In the Garden' and 'At the Seaside'.
These spotter guides are fun, bright, compact and have quite a cult hip status in the UK, or is it just me? They were popular in the 1980s I believe, and were reissued at the millennium. They also help children learn how to categorise and differentiate. Put your child on a diet of Michellin I-Spy books at an early age, and I'm convinced that they'll be fantastic at pub quizzes when they're older; a very worthy and useful social skill.
Written and Illustrated by Sally Garland
Publisher: Top That, 2015
This is a lovely simple story in which dog friends Tig and Tog are playing in the park, Tig is initially reluctant to share her stick, but together the friends make an exciting discovery and work together to uncover more of the surprise in the ground. Tig and Tog have to use various tools to dig up their find. 3 year old Edie excitedly recalled that a wheelbarrow would be used, while 5 year old Bert remembered (with two pages to go) what the big find would be- a dinosaur skeleton!
The story builds up nicely, slowly and quietly, starting with the friends using very basic tools to dig at the ground, sticks in the mud, moving on to spades and then even diggers. The overriding message inTig and Tog: The Discovery is about achieving more when working together and sharing ideas and 'things' (in this case tools to dig, but possessions in general are inferred). That's a useful message to bring to squabbling siblings, or to open up discussion on themes of friendship, sharing and cooperation. My children like the back page of the book which shows a dinosaur skeleton on display, reading 'Found by Tig and Tog with a stick' though it's easy to miss on the outro sheet.
This is a simple, quiet and charming book, with light watercolour style graphics, sweet but fairly unmemorable characters. The book appealed visually more to female Edie on first sight ( the gendered appropriation of light pastel shades had a hand here I think), but the narrative itself was well received by both 3-5year olds (boy and girl) sharing this story tonight.
Author: Tracey Corderoy
Illustrator: Steven Lenton
Five year old boy and three year old girl hugely excited to find this one on Fred's bed tonight, ready to read. Edie (3) calls this 'Gifty McGifty'. 'They steal lots of cakes' she said, though that isn't exactly how the story goes.
Robber dogs Shifty and Sam are hopeless burgalars; they plan a final heist, this time on their neighbour's houses, inviting the dog neighbours round for cake to make sure they're out in time for the robbery. Turns out they're still hopeless criminals but fantastic bakers, a new careers blossoms.
This is a fun rhyming story with a great message, bad guys turn good, everyone has the ability to do something well, and saying sorry and changing our ways goes a long way.
The assortment of dogs is also fun, a sausage dog, a Scottie dog with a cuddly toy, a pink poodle. Nice graphics, block browns, purple, blues and black against pastels.
