Little Cherub's Book Choice: Scarecrow's Secret

Last year I bought a boxed set of twenty Usborne Farmyard Tales books very cheaply from The Book People and put it away for Christmas. After a couple of weeks fixated on In the Night Garden twaddle, she has now moved on to these books. Scarecrow's Secret was the first to catch her attention because the song "Dingle Dangle Scarecrow" is a current favourite - reading the book always entails a certain amount of "dingle-dangling" (shaking arms and legs as in the song).

I like these books for their double-whammy effect. Although written for beginner readers, they also work well for toddlers. The simple text and animal themes make them good to read to little ones. A nice extra is that every page has a tiny yellow duck hidden somewhere, and playing "spot-the-duck" gives an added touch of toddler interest. As readers, they are designed to work on two levels. There is a simple sentence at the top of the page, then some more text at the bottom. Initially the books can be buddy-read, with the very new reader reading just the single sentences while the adult reads the rest; as reading skills develop, the child moves on to reading the entire book. For example, one page has: "Mr. Straw is doing a good job." ... "Every day Mr. Boot, Poppy and Sam look at Mr. Straw. There are no birds in the cornfield." Simple stuff, but Little Cherub likes it. And I remember finding them very useful when Star was at the "Mr. Straw is doing a good job." stage of reading. I don't think I found them in time to use them with Angel.

After multiple readings of Scarecrow's Secret we have finally been allowed to move on to the rest of the box. Today's choices were The Old Steam Train and The New Pony.