Our July Books!

Our pick for your Explorers!

A fiery story about friendship and asking for help from award-winning author-illustrator Emma Yarlett.

One day Alex finds a dragon living in the cupboard under the stairs. Determined to help the dragon, Alex writes letters to lots of different people – including the fire brigade and the butcher– to ask how he should take care of his surprise visitor.

Our own children absolutely loved opening the five envelopes and reading the hilarious letters to Alex. The author has taken great care in writing clever, beautifully produced letters which are full of jokes and character.

Our favourite letter is from Hillary, Alex’s best friend, and those children that are learning phonics, will recognise the words Hillary has tried her hardest to spell.

For my son who struggles when making mistakes, it has been eye-opening for him to see a letter in a ‘proper’ book which has crossing outs and words spelt phonetically correctly.

The story also touches very gently and sensitively on loss. Teaching children that sometimes it can be hard to do what is best for those you love.

We adore this book and have lost count of how many times we’ve been asked to read it!

Our pick for your investigators!

Laugh-out-loud hilarity with two-colour illustrations from the incomparable Pamela Butchart - three different stories of mayhem and chaos where pupils' imaginations run riot!

Year 2 at Wigglesbottom Primary is never dull. In the first story, the pupils at Wigglesbottom Primary don't expect to run a race against a chicken at Sports Day! And then the other two stories, involve green toxic slime at lunch (it's Halloween custard!) and that Anne Marie Moor is an ant queen and one of her subjects is called Lady Gaga. But they love every minute of it and so will your children because it’s utterly ridiculous!

Our eldest is a huge fan of the Wigglesbottom Primary series and I don’t think we have ever seen her so excited when a sample copy has arrived! She devoured this book in record time - refusing to put it down when she should have been eating her breakfast! Our eldest has now lent her copy to friends for them to enjoy.

Whether your child is just moving onto chapter books or is an independent reader, they will not be able to put this book down over the summer.