Maverick’s Early Readers have been beautifully designed to help support a young child on their early reading journey and five new Early Readers based on five of Maverick’s existing picture books have just been published. If you are looking for fun books for your children to practise their reading during the Easter break these little books are the perfect size to pack into a child’s bag and take on holiday.
The Early Readers have been edited by educational consultant, Catherine Baker, to fit into industry standard book bands, green being the easiest followed by orange and then turquoise. What I like about the books is that although a lot of thought has gone into making sure that they fit into the literacy curriculum they don’t have the look of a ‘reading book’ which can discourage some children from practising their reading. The stories are fun and original, the illustrations on the covers invite you to open the books and the text is printed in an easy to read black font on a white background.
There are multiple choice quizzes at the end of each book which consolidate a child’s understanding of what they have read as well as increase the enjoyment of the reading experience. You can also download a Learning Pack for each book on Maverick’s website. The Learning Packs include learning objectives, ideas for lessons and examples of language and linguistic features (e.g. alliteration, onomatopoeia, sight words and consonant clusters). There are also activity and colouring sheets to help extend children’s understanding of the text and stimulate further learning, the packs are a great resource for the classroom.
The stories in this Early Readers Band Two pack include Pirates Don’t Drive Diggers and A Gold Star For George which we love as picture books.
Green Band
I Wish I’d Been Born A Unicorn by Rachel Lyon and Andrea Ringli: Mucky the horse thinks that he would have more friends if he was a unicorn. Owl helps Mucky to look like a unicorn but when it rains Mucky’s costume is washed away and he discovers that the other animals like him just as he is.
I Wish I'd Been Born a Unicorn (Early Reader)
by Andrea Ringli (artist) Rachel Lyon [Maverick Arts Publishing]
£5.99
· 
EUR 7,50
· 
EUR 7,24
· 
EUR 7,29
· 
$5.71
Orange Band
Pirates Don’t Drive Diggers by Alex English and Duncan Beedie: Young Brad, a pirate, wants to work on a building site but is told that ‘Pirates Don’t Drive Diggers.’ Brad proves everybody wrong when he uses a digger to dig up Captain Blood’s treasure.
Pirates Don't Drive Diggers (Early Reader)
by Alex English [Maverick Arts Publishing]
£5.99
· EUR 7,50
· EUR 6,92
· EUR 6,79
· $5.77
A Gold Star For George by Alice Hemming and Kimberley Scott: George is hoping to win a gold star and helps his friends with their efforts to win gold stars too. When George doesn’t win any stars his friends make him stars for being such a great friend.
A Gold Star for George (Early Reader)
by Kimberley Scott (illustrator) Alice Hemming [Maverick Arts Publishing]
£4.99
· EUR 7,50
· EUR 6,92
· EUR 7,29
· $9.93
Turquoise Band
Grumpy King Colin by Phill Alcock and Steve Stone: King Colin is extremely badly behaved and thinks that he can do what he likes because he’s the king. He ignores everybody shouting at him for doing things wrong but there is one person that he eventually listens to – his mother!
Grumpy King Colin (Early Reader)
by Kimberley Scott (artist) Phil Allcock [Maverick Arts Publishing]
£3.91
· EUR 7,50
· EUR 4,66
· EUR 4,59
· $5.81
The Four Little Pigs by Kimara Nye and Marcin Bruchnalski: Tom’s Granny magics him into the story of The Three Little Pigs. Tom plays several tricks on the wolf so that the wolf can’t get into the pigs’ houses and finally the wolf gives up and goes to visit Red Riding Hood.
The Four Little Pigs (Early Reader)
by Marcin Bruchnalski (artist) Kimara Nye [Maverick Arts Publishing]
£3.03
· EUR 7,50
· EUR 3,79
· EUR 3,73
· $5.83
If you are a teacher or a school librarian I would definitely recommend adding Maverick’s Early Readers to your libraries. They are great books to help children consolidate and extend their reading skills.
Thank you to Maverick Books for sending us the Band Two Early Readers which can also be bought as a pack. My daughter couldn’t wait to read them once the parcel was opened, they have been a great support to her on her reading journey. As a bilingual reader she has benefited from the fact that some of the books are based on stories that she is already familiar with.
by Alex English [Maverick Arts Publishing]
£19.99
· -
· -
· EUR 23,83
· -
Lovely to see some early reading books that look fun and exciting for children. My eldest is not quite ready to read himself yet but I know he’d enjoy the stories, especially the pirate one!
It’s great to see reading books that don’t look like reading books 🙂
Well I already love the title I Wish I’d Been Born A Unicorn!! Thanks for sharing with #ReadWithMe
I Wish I’d Been Born a Unicorn is a fun story 🙂
These look and sound good. I’ve watched my boys both go through the bands at school and it is great to know what is appropriate at each stage #readwithme
The bands are a great way to help parents understand where the books are in a reading scheme. A lot of thought has gone into making sure that these books provide additional material to existing reading schemes.
These look and sound really appealing – I know my son would love to read a book about Pirates and Diggers! Thanks for linking up with #TriedTested
Pirates Don’t Drive diggers is one of my favourite picture books from last year.
Such a lovely selection now to inspire children to read #TriedTested
There is a huge selection of great reading books around, hopefully even the most reluctant readers can now find something to inspire them 🙂
Such a lovely selection from Maverick’s Early Readers. I can’t wait to order some when I’m old enough to start reading properly, Infact my mummy can start reading them to me!! #TriedTested xx
You’ll probably be learning to read before you know it Baby Isabella!
I have a 4 year old (at pre-school) so we’re not really at this stage yet and I’m just getting my head around it! She would love the unicorn book. One to save for future reference.
They’re fun to read as story books too which gives children the opportunity to start recognising high frequency words.
These look great for helping young children to read #readwithme
They make learning to read fun 🙂
I love the way book banding allows parents and teachers to choose books of an appropriate level for the child. These sound like great books.
Thanks for sharing your review on #TriedTested this week x
The book banding is really helpful and means that it’s easy to slot these books into an existing reading scheme.