A ReadItDaddy Early Readers / Chapter Book Round-up for September 2014

As more and more early readers and chapter books become a staple on ReadItDaddy we thought it would be a great idea to do a monthly roundup of some of the titles that have hit our doormat. 

For your football-mad kids, "Frankie's Magic Football - Frankie Saves Christmas" by Frank Lampard (with illustrations by Mick Jackson) continues the engaging series of books with a footy and festive theme. Frankie's toughest draw yet pits Frankie and his friends against a rotten reindeer, a mischievous elf and a truly abominable snowman. It'll take more than a set of snowballs to defeat that little lot!

"Frankie's Magic Football - Frankie Saves Christmas" is released by L & B Kids on 2nd October 2014. 

Charlotte has been absolutely crazy about "The Rescue Princesses" series by Paula Harrison since mummy used to read them to her. Now Charlotte's old enough to tuck herself away with the books, and she has been voraciously consuming them at an alarming rate of knots ever since (thank goodness there are 12 books to choose from in the series. 

The two currently on Charlotte's reading pile are "The Ice Diamond" and "The Rainbow Opal" and though Charlotte's reading them in a fairly jumbled up order, she's absolutely loving this adventurous and magical series. The books are out now and Paula is hard at work on a new top-secret project for announcement in 2015 so keep an eye out for that!

Find out more about Paula and the Rescue Princesses on The Nosy Crow website.

Another extremely busy and prolific lady has a huge number of books arriving this autumn and winter. As well as "A Treasury of Animal Stories" (which collects together Holly's well-loved animal tales into one bumper volume) Holly has a new wintry book "The Winter Wolf" and a touching and heartwarming new tale about coping with loss and grief, with illustrations by Catherine Rayner - "A Tiger Tale". All three are available now so check out Holly's work, we just do not know how she manages to write so many brilliant stories, there truly is something for everyone.

Lockwood and Co - The Whispering Skull (Lockwood and Co 2) by Jonathan Stroud (Doubleday Children's Books)

Last but not least, a book that I had to kidnap all to myself. Jonathan Stroud is back with a fantastic followup to "The Screaming Staircase". "Lockwood and Co - The Whispering Skull" once again plunges us deep into the darkness of an alt-London, in the company of Lockwood, Lucy and George for more spooky goings on. I'd long been clamouring for the return of the classic ghost story when the first Lockwood book arrived with a clatter of chains and an expert swish of a rapier. "The Whispering Skull" does not disappoint, it's spooky and scary stuff but wrought with Jonathan Stroud's expert eye for detail and absolutely top notch characterisations. I couldn't put it down, seriously!

"Lockwood and Co - The Whispering Skull" arrived on September 25th from Doubleday Children's Books so go grab your copy now!

That's about it for our chapter book roundup for this month. We'll be making this a semi-regular thing so if chapter books and early readers are your thing, we'll be covering more and more on the blog very soon.