As today marks World Book Day, I thought I’d have a series of posts across the day to showcase my children’s favourite books.
Reading is a BIG deal here. Anyone who knows me will know that my house is often drowning under books! We have books everywhere, and I am keen to add a bookcase to our dining room…. just requires a bit of a think as to how we re-jig things in our front room once we have decorated and whether we move the current bookcase or not. Either way it will very soon be filled with books for the children and I.
The first of my posts today is to share the books that my six year -old daughter loves. Reading has really taken off for her over the last 4/5 months and she and her older brother are often found snuggled up together on the sofa reading a book. Here today I am sharing her current favourite series of books.
You can view the books my seven-year-old loves here and those my three year old loves here.
Rainbow Magic
At the moment it’s all about Rainbow Magic. There are over 250 Rainbow Magic Faries and Em and her older brother both really enjoy this series. We have borrowed plenty from the library and for her birthday she got a box set of 35 from my parents as well as some smaller box-sets I’d managed to pick up in the charity shop. Whenever we spot them she’s desperate to add to her collection.
What I really like about these stories is that they’re actually quite good fun – some early chapter books can be a bit tricky to read, but Daisy Meadows does a fantastic job of bringing the story together and making the fairies their own individual characters.
Each fairy sits within a theme such as sports fairy, jewel fairy, weather fairy etc. And they use their own magic to defeat Jack Frost. Really good fun books and just enough challenge to stretch young developing readers without them being off-putting,
We are also excited to have spotted the Unicorn Magic series when we were in the library earlier in the week so I am sure we will be looking to add some of those to our home collection soon.
Em is going as a Rainbow Magic Fairy to our World Book Day meet up today.
Unicorn Academy
I’ve written before about our love of the Unicorn Academy series of books and we have been collecting these for about 18 months or so now. Em completed her collection of these books for her birthday last month when she got the three she needed. We really like these books, and they’ve been returned to time and time again by both her and Daniel.
Good wholesome fun with a little bit of mystery and intrigue. I know when each new books lands that Em will be looking for a gap in the day to go away and read it. The covers are really appealing and the illustrations are fantastic – a really good example of a chapter book that does a fantastic job of developing the reader as they make that transition from picture books, to early readers to full chapter books.
I will always have fond memories of this series of books and it will be a sad day when we have outgrown the Unicorn Academy.
Magic Ballerina
Our final much-loved series is the Magic Ballerina series. I must admit this is a new addition to the reading rota. Our library was selling some withdrawn stock a few weeks back and Em picked one of these books up. I then spotted the series on offer with the book people for £7 so it seemed like too good a deal to miss. She’s currently working her way through the series and I’ve spotted her dancing and twirling away!
This series of books is aimed at a slightly older audience than the other two so I am sure she’s developing her reading skills whilst she reads these.
There can often be a bit of snobbery around the books that young children read. None of the above are what you’d consider classic literary fiction but they are well-loved books here. They’re imparting a key skill of independent reading, improving reading speed and comprehension. The authors know their audience well and these are books that have really held her interest and engage her with reading.
