 |
Berry Goes to Winterland - Georgie Adams
by kingfisher111
Georgie Adams has written a series of entertaining books about the delightful Longears family, otherwise known as the Railway Rabbits. Barley, Mellow and their five little rabbits live in a burrow in the Ripple River Valley where there is lots to do and plenty of opportunities to get into trouble. My daughters and I had first met these ... delightful characters in Wisher and the Runaway Piglet and we were very much looking forward to finding out what they would get up to in Berry Goes to Winterland.
In this story, the young rabbits are very excited when they see snow for the first time. They have great fun sliding, building snow rabbits and falling over. When it is time to go home though, they realise that Berry has disappeared and before long, a search party is set up.
Meanwhile, Berry is having a fine adventure involving a merry white bearded old man wearing a red suit and a sackful of toys that he mistakes for his brothers, sisters and friends. As he is not very careful though, he ends up in the sack too and is in danger of ending up as a small child's Christmas presents. That is unless his friends and family can find him first.
My daughters really loved this entertaining story although they did think that Berry was very naughty to go wandering off on his own. The book is quite funny in places but also very exciting as you just don't know what is going to happen to Berry until the very end. The girls also love that at the front of the book there is a map so that they can trace Berry's route as he goes off on his adventures.
The characters are all quite charming and , having already met them once, it felt as if we were reading about old friends. I am sure that by the time we have read the entire series, they will feel like part of the family! My five year old daughter loves reading about the same characters in different stories and remembering the things that they have already got up to.
The book is divided into seven short chapters which would make it an ideal story to read over a series of bedtimes, or for newly confident readers to read by themselves in short bursts. We like the fact that all of the chapters have titles, so that when you finish reading one, you can start to anticipate what is going to happen in the next.
Although this book is part of a series, it is also an enjoyable book in its own right. However, to fully appreciate this funny family and all the different characters, I would recommend reading Wisher and the Runaway Piglet first.
This delightful paperback book with only 96 pages (making it ideal for younger readers) is currently available on Amazon for £4.99 (March 2011).
This review has previously appeared under my name at www.thebookbag.co.uk
Read the complete review |
 |
Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend - Francesca Simon
by jo1976
I've always tried to share my love of reading with my children, to encourage them to read for pleasure as I think it opens up a whole new world for them and helps to develop their imagination. As my oldest son has got older, he seems to be more interested in factual, non-fiction books so I have been on the look out for some ... age-appropriate fiction stories that he would also enjoy.
My local library stocks quite a selection of Francesca Simon's 'Horrid Henry' series, so we have been working our way through them. 'Horrid Henry' is quite a well-established character nowadays, partly thanks to the CITV television adaptation of these stories, so I knew that this would be a character that my eight year old son would be able to relate to. Throughout the series of novels, Horrid Henry manages to live up to his nickname and gets up to all sorts of mischief, often at the expense of his little brother, Perfect Peter. Fortunately, neither of my oldest boys are either horrid or perfect (not all of the time anyway!) but there is certainly an element of sibling rivalry between them that makes this seem realistic and brings a smile to my lips as I share this with my eight year old.
This particular collection, 'Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend', is one of the shorter books in the series with just 101 pages and is split into four short stories; 'Horrid Henry Peeks at Peter's Diary', 'Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend', 'Horrid Henry Goes Shopping' and 'Horrid Henry's Arch Enemy'. Each of the short stories are what I would consider to be a reasonable length to be read as a bedtime story, taking around ten to fifteen minutes to be read aloud by an adult. If a child is reading the story aloud themselves, it may be worth splitting the story into slightly shorter chunks as I found my son's concentration was beginning to lapse after a while.
This is certainly a book best suited to quite a confident young reader and, even then, there are quite a few complex words included that my son struggled with when reading independently (such as 'conscientious' and 'assignments') as well as quite a few unusual words where I needed to explain the meaning to him, including the 'fiend' included in the title.
Of the four stories, my son's favourite was the Arch Enemy story as it referred back to another book in the series and re-introduced us to 'Bossy Bill,' the unpleasant son of Henry's Dad's boss, who we first met in 'Horrid Henry's Revenge.' It was purely a lucky coincidence that we had happened to read that particular book beforehand but I don't think the enjoyment of this story would have been affected if we hadn't. I think any of the Horrid Henry books can be read in any order as the stories are a complete read in their own right, with only the themes of Henry's mischief, trouble making and general cheekiness linking the stories together, as well as the familiar characters such as Perfect Peter and Moody Margaret.
The 'Football Fiend' of the title story is actually Moody Margaret so my own son was pretty amused to see Henry getting outplayed by a girl and shared in his desire to get his own back, particularly as Moody Margaret is almost as devious and fond of cheating as Henry is himself. My son could also relate to 'Horrid Henry Goes Shopping' as he hates being dragged around the shops too, unless he's buying sweets or Slam Attax!
The fun stories of Henry's mischief are amusingly and appropriately illustrated by Tony Ross' line drawings. Ross is perhaps best known as the author and illustrator of the Little Princess stories and his style of drawing, with the emphasis on characters' facial expressions and emotions, really helps to bring the stories to life.
This short little collection was thoroughly enjoyed by both my son and I. I can thoroughly recommend this book in particular, and the Horrid Henry series in general, to tempt even reluctant young readers into enjoying fiction as Henry is a character that most little boys can relate to!
Read the complete review |
