Toad makes a Road is another book from the Usborne Phonics Readers series for 3-5yr olds. It retails at £4.99 individually but you can get it as part of a box set for a discounted price usually if you prefer. I got the box set including twelve titles from the Usborne Phonics Readers series for £9.99 from the Book People. I'm reviewing all of the titles that we own so please see my other reviews if you're thinking about buying any of the titles from this series.

Toad makes a Road is one of our favourites from this series. It's probably actually better suited to kids of about four to six though, rather than the recommended age of three to five years. What makes it so good is that the story is progressive and very realistic unlike some of the other titles from this series. It isn't just an author stumbling through trying to use the same words as many times as possible.

Toad has a new house, and he needs to bring his things to it. The truck can't get to it because he hasn't got a road. So toad makes a road! That's only after he's comically struggled up the hill with all his things of course. When he's all finished, his friends comes up to visit him in a truck that uses toads new road.

This story rhymes in the same way that the others in this series do which helps early readers to have a go at guessing what some of the words are. The book focuses on helping kids to get to grips with the "oa" sound as it manages it to use it in lots of different forms (toad, road, boast, load, goat).

The pictures are brightly drawn and there are lots of happy faces throughout this book. There are a couple of interactive lift-the-flap pages included too.

This is a firm favourite with the grandson because the story is so easy to get involved with and it's really entertaining. I think some of the titles in this series are a bit patronising to even small kids through over-using repetitive words just for the sake of being repetitive. This title is different, it's main focus appears to be the story and it's as if all the repetition is just a happy coincidence. Our grandson only read this book once before he got to grips with the "oa" sound which means this has to get five stars from me.