Here's a fantastic little range of Early Readers from Kingfisher Books, taking a slightly different tack to most KS1 and KS2 books. Developed in conjunction with literacy experts, the books cover a broad range of topics.
We looked at three: Baby Animals by Thea Feldman, Where We Live and The Fastest by Brenda Stones - each with fantastic photographic illustrations to underpin interesting layouts and text flows to engage children who don't get on that well with the standard Early Readers formats.
With Charlotte at an age where she's hungrily consuming early readers at a rate of knots (and when she can't read those, she'll sit there reading words off the sides of tissue boxes - seriously!) these are a great addition to a home library. They may feel a bit too 'schooly' for some children, but they're very enjoyable and the diverse range of subjects should ensure a good spread in the range to engage both girls and boys.
Check out the rest of the range on the Kingfisher Books website:
http://www.kingfisherreaders.com/uk/index.html
Charlotte's favourite bit: An engaging and extremely attractive range of early readers that really appealed to her current mood of 'finding things out' and fact-gathering.
Daddy's favourite bit: A really nice 'break' from the usual early readers we get sent home from school, the non-fiction approach is brilliant and seems to work better in some ways than some of the usual disjointed storytelling approaches in early reader ranges.
(Kindly sent to us for review by Pan Macmillan / Kingfisher Books)