New Tom Gates Book Epic Adventure- Available from Scholastic Christmas Shop

November 28, 2017 Chopsy Baby

Reading books is a library to life. It doesn’t matter what kind of books, annuals, comics or graphic novels children like to read. Anything is better than nothing.

If you are thinking of buying a book for your child or as a gift for another, it can be difficult to know where to start. There are so many more children’s books for a wide variety of readers, levels and ages than back twenty years ago. This is great because there’s a story for everyone to start with. Writers such as Jeff Kinney and Liz Pichon with their unique styles have also managed to create stories appealing to reluctant readers with book avoidance. Their clever typography, story lines and themes appeal to year 4, 5 and 6 children who just hate books.

We found the Scholastic website a great place to start. Known for their school book fairs, Scholastic know exactly how to get the right book to the right child and their website guides you through the ginormous children’s market suitably organised by age groups or authors or genre.

I decided to give the Scholastic website a go to see if I could make a suitable book choice for my own ten year old who hates books and hates reading. It quite breaks the heart of a parent who does love books to see any of their children dismiss them as rubbish. It was going to be a challenge.

I visited the website, selected Christmas gifts for children aged 7-11, saw the Tom Gates book and went yes, that’s the one! But was I right? This is what ten year old Sid Tudor Smith thought of my selection:

Liz Pichon’s new Tom Gates book Epic Adventure, is great. I like the way it’s written. It’s big so that I can read it properly. I find it hard to see small writing. I can look at the sentences because they have big spaces, not all squished together. It’s much easier following the words and not getting lost.

I like having the pictures in the text and when they put them in writing as a speech bubble with characters. It helps to have the big words jump out at you.

The way the story twists around in lots of different ways draws you in. It’s very funny, it has a really good sense of humour.

I would recommend this book to people with dyslexia or people who find it hard to read small writing. People should buy these books because if they have a child with some sort of reading disability it will help them to read. It will be easier to understand the story because of all the pictures that help you see the plot.

That’s a win!

Scholastic’s Christmas Bookshop is open now and includes over 600 book ideas, exclusive offers and money saving packs.