Little Red Riding Hood

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.     

Tales of Robin Hood: Robin and the Silver Arrow

Author: Damian Harvey
Illustrator: Martin Remphry
Publisher: Franklin Watts, Hachette Children's Books, 2006, The Hopscotch Series

I've recently put a polite request in with our local library to please consider buying more of these Hopscotch Series of books as my boys (5  and 7, and increasingly so my 3 year old girl) absolutely love this collection. Over the past couple of years, we've borrowed and read the Tales of Robin Hood, the Stories of Sinbad the Sailor through this range, and some about legends or historical figures such as BloodAxe Eric, Blackbeard the Pirate, Sir Gwain and the Green Knight (Tales of King Arthur), Mary Seacole, Guy Fawkes to name a few. I imagine the true series range is huge, sadly our library and all the local libraries from which I also requested, have incomplete books in the series ( and we live in a big city for the UK). What a shame for all that the number of books obtainable from the Hopscotch series free in our libraries is sadly limited. Moreover, they don't seem to carry this series at my children's school either, which again, is a real travesty. Seems such a pity as this series makes reading rock! 

From an educational point of view, Hopscotch states it is 'specially designed to fit the requirements of the National Literacy Strategy, aiming to develop children's reading skills' and carries the 'series advisor Dr Barrie Wade, Professor of English in Education, University of Birmingham' . As I've stated before on my blog, I can't officially comment on the educational value of children's books I review, as I have no training at this age range, but whenever I finish reading a Hopscotch book, I always personally feel I've learnt something (mainly about a historical figure). 

In this title, Tales of Robin Hood: Robin and the Silver Arrow, there's a good mix of dialogue and narrative, enabling early readers to try out expression. The illustrations are a little fussy perhaps, but they are laid out pragmatically, allowing roughly three or four sentences  maximum per picture. The use of thought bubbles helps emerging readers follower the storyline, and place themselves in a authorative and knowledgeable position as storyteller. All the books I've read in this series follow the same very useful and purposeful logic. Themes and vocabulary coming out of this title, as an example, are: disguise, competition ( in relation to a tournament), the den and merry men (working together as a team and having friends). This pitch is again typical across the series. 

Using a very familiar folk legend, Robin Hood, children come to the text with some existing expectations. As an adventure story, they seek action-filled, but in way of critiquing this particular title, I would suggest that there are maybe too many characters introduced all at once: Robin, Will Scarlet, little John, Much the Miller's Son, and the Sherriff all in just 31 very short pages. Saying this, as the story is already familiar, this isn't too much of a problem; my two sons, early independent readers, get a real sense of statisfaction from being 'in the know' and feel confident and interested in reading this series themeselves as a consequence. Thumbs up to Hopscotch for #gettingboysreading! 

The Tale of the Tooth Fairy

Author: Helen East
Illustrator: Katinka Kew
Publisher: Macdonald Children's Books, 1989

Well it came to pass tonight, finally, that 5 year old Bert lost his front tooth. Off I skedaddled to the bookshelf to find this mainstay of our household tooth loosing experience - a fiction book about the origins of the tooth fairy. 
Yes indeed, the cover illustrations look a bit menacing, and the idea of a 'tooth gang master' called Justice Fang, who recruits trolls and ogres, goblins, witches and hard-up highwaymen to collect teeth in all manner of ways, is a tad on the fearsome side for bedtime, but giving substance to the tooth fairies actions and motivations is so worth it. 

The book tells the story of an average fairy with no remarkable attributes, so her fairy visitors name her 'Nothing'. However, Nothing amounts to so very much as she discovers her first pearly white tooth to take to Justice Fang, and gifts the sleeping child before her, with a bright new shiny coin. Nothing then revisits the child to find a note requesting she returns for the next tooth, and could she please visit and leave coins for the child's gappy-mouthed friends? Meanwhile the story-in-the-story tells of sceptical Jack, a boy who, like my son Bert, awaits the tooth fairy with many questions, such as, 'how can one fairy visit all the children in one night?' 
This is a magical read helping to 'inform' and so fuel the excitement of a tooth-loss evening. It's an old book, and possibly out of issue (I found it in a charity shop a few years ago) so it might be difficult to acquire. I would also suggest it is suitable for the over fives and not preschoolers, as the illustrations are just a bit too creepy to share with children any younger. The head-shot pictures in particular, show shallow, sunken faces, and they're very ghoulish and haunting. The 'baddies' in the book are depicted as plentiful, thriving and sinister. The story captures a sense of foreboding for poor doomed fairy Nothing, but there's an underdog-victor outcome, a message of hope. Children who like books about legends and myths will enjoy this; it's very macabre and in all, one of those books that lodges in the memory well, balancing on that fear/pleasure binary.  

The Little Mermaid

                                        

Illustrator: Alan Marks 
Retelling:  Katie Daynes
Publisher: Usborne, 2010


This is most certainly not a great version of the Hans Christian Andersen classic. Insipid watercolour illustrations, particularly the illustration of the witch ( really scary for younger readers), and it definitely doesn't have the Disney ending either. The mermaid in this version never regains her voice and disappears into the murky waves forever. There's much rosier versions of this tale, and although I'm usually up for honest and slightly dark children's literary reworkings, for the under sevens age range, expecting Disney, I don't recommend this version of the retelling. 

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Adapted by: Unknown
Illustrated by: John Holder
Publisher:  Ladybird Books Ltd, 1998

From Ladybird's famous 'Read it Yourself' series, we enjoy Ladybird Level 4 The Pied Piper of Hamelin, mainly due to John Holder's very eerie, spindly-legged depiction of rats, but also because the ending of this version of the adaptation, it's very creepy ( and memorable).  In the ending of this adaptation the Mayor is continuing to look for the children lost in the mountainside 'for years and years and years. He is still looking for them now.' Lack of text closure isn't so common in modern children's lit in the UK I think, and hence this ending feels quite haunting and memorable. The detailed hatching on the aged and wandering mayor is almost ethereal; Bert (5) always asks many hypotheticals in response to this image: 'will the major find the children one day?', 'what does the major eat now?', 'Is he sad about the rats and not paying the Pied Piper.' This endpage really surmises 'regret' as a theme, such an interesting concept to bring to young children. 

While Ladybird level 4 is designed as 'longer stories for more fluent readers', children's reading schemes today seem to press more on the vocabulary building rather than length of story, so emerging readers today might find this long winded. As a bedtime book, read by an adult, or fluent reader, it's enchanting. The rats are quite frightening, both in size, as the illustrator experiments well with perspective, getting some rat close ups in the foreground. 

The story is very moralistic, the mayor doing wrong by his people by not paying the Pied Piper and keeping to his promise. This mistake brings about sorrow and loss for a whole town, having their children taken from them, lead away as the rats were. In terms of folklore and fairytales, The Pied Piper is perhaps one of the most alarming, as there is no fantastical beast or mythical creature casting the spells or doing the capturing, but instead, something very everyday and immediate, a man. Fear is,  by its nature enthralling, and as such my children are captivated by this book. 

Usborne Young Readers: Stories of Dragons

Author: Christopher Rawson
Publisher: Usborne 

I remember having a version of this book with these same cartoony illustrations by Stephen Cartwright, as a child.  The series is designed 'for readers who have just started reading alone' but these are really interesting stories to be read out aloud to children too. Chapter 3 is especially engaging as it seems to be based on the story of the Lambton Worm. We 
happened to be in the vicinity of Penshaw Monument in Sunderland today, so reread the children chapter three 'The Wicked Worm' and then completed The National Trust Lambton Worm Walk https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/penshaw-monument/trails/penshaw-monument-easy-walk-4-lambton-worm.
 The well where Tom ( the boy) throws the worm away, it then grows into a huge teeth bearing wicked worm which attacks the villagers, is known locally as 'Ella's Well'. The children enjoyed bringing the story to life following the trail and seeing the real well and spot where 'Tom' went fishing. 
The book also contains short stories about Stan, a man who outwits dragons with brains rather than brawn, and Victor, a man who falls into a dragon's den and persuades them not to eat him. 
The book is the perfect read for 4-6 year olds, at which point it's an easy read from them to be tackling on their own. These are stories that really stay in the memory and spark the imagination and can be supported with an active walk - brilliant!