*Gifted Item
I’m super thriled to be invited to take part in Willow Tree Books first ever blog tour for their new book, Save the Day for Ada May. Written by Elizabeth Dale and illustrated by Patrick Corrigan, Save the Day for Ada May is a fun book that invites readers to really engage with the story – using the book to help Ada May escape many perilous situations… and occasionally putting her into some new ones!
We do love our books here, and Save the Day for Ada May is a fantastic book for children that are perhaps a little younger, or just find sitting still all a bit tricky! We meet Ada May who is out with her older brother, Max, feeding the ducks. Unbeknown to Max, Ada May goes on a riotous adventure that sees her narrowly escape a dog, stuck up a tree, facing down an angry bull, in the middle of a herd of esacaped sheep and stuck on a roof!
Using the reader, Ada May is rescued as children are invited to shake the book, turn it upside down and tap on it… helping Ada May escape the situations she finds herself in and back to the safety of her pushchair with her older brother.
As this is such an interactive book I thought it would be fun for the children to create their own Ada May characters and play out the story. The older two are really enjoying creating shows and plays at the moment, so this appealed to them in terms of translating the story to their ‘stage’.
We drew out our characters and set up the story using various toys that they have. It was lots of fun watching them do this, and I was impressed how much of the story they could recall!
We narrated the story and jumped our Ada Mays (or in Daniel’s case his monkey!) over the obstacles and we saw her escape the bull and make it back to the safety of the duck pond. It was interesting that they refined the stage after the first play, but then added more adventures for Ada May to escape from – things like jumping into a bus and being taken for a ride somewhere.
Books that encourage children to join in and be part of the story in a real way are brilliant for engaging readers, often reluctant ones or wiggly ones! Books that allow full body movement work fantastically well for enegertic toddlers and I know that on rainy days this is just the sort of book we can extend into our own adventures; getting my youngest one playing any my older ones narrating their own extended adventures!
The Save the Day for Ada May blog tour continues this week, and you can check out the banner at the top of this post which will let you know who else has been hosting Ada May this last week!
You can read more about the autor Elizabeth Dale on her website here and more about the illustrator Patrick Corrigan, here.
