(Gifted)¦ There are a lot of good children’s books out there, but sometimes you spot something that’s special. That was what happened when an email about these books appeared in my inbox a few weeks ago. 8 year old Molly McDrew loves going on adventures. She uses her magic blanket to explore space, the world and even a huge historical event (the Great Fire of London!) They’re written for Key Stage 1 children by a teacher of over 20 years with the curriculum in mind and in a way that helps them to engage them and expand their vocabulary. Autumn is currently in Year 1, so at 6 years old is bang in the middle of the target audience of 4-8 year olds.
Storylines
At the moment, there are three Molly McDrew books. However, Autumn and I are really hoping there will be more!
An Adventure Around the World
Molly is feeling bored one Saturday morning, when she decides to go on an adventure. She decides to travel the world, visiting places including the North Pole and Paris! She sees animals and landmarks and experiences different climates. On her journey, she unexpectedly has to undertake a rescue mission!
Molly McDrew’s Space Adventure
Molly’s brother, Max, is playing football when he kicks his ball so hard he thinks it must have reached the moon! Alas, it is nowhere to be found. Molly knew exactly how to help with her magic blanket. Soon, her and her brother are travelling around our solar system searching for it. As they pass each planet, they say its name and observe its appearance and features.
Molly McDrew and the Great Fire of London
Molly asks her Mum how the Great Fire of London started. When her Mum says she doesn’t know, she takes matters into her own hands and travels back in time to London in 1666! She compares London then to her recent trip there and is surprised how different it looks. She sees the Great Fire of London and finds out how it began and what was done to stop it. Molly even comes across Samuel Pepys in her travels!
Illustrations
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover…but we all get drawn in by book covers! Children are even more drawn in by illustrations – and the Molly McDrew books certainly capture the attention with theirs printed on super-glossy covers. The illustrations both on the front and throughout the books are absolutely gorgeous and really fire up the imagination. I try to make sure we have diversity amongst the characters in books on our shelves, so it’s also nice to see that Molly appears to be part of a mixed race family.
My Thoughts
These books are very well written and suitable for all abilities of children from 4 to 8 years old. Confident readers will enjoy reading them by themselves. I really liked how the nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are all bold and large to make them stand out. Not only do these help children to see how to use them to construct a sentence, I noticed that many of these words may be ones children haven’t come across before. As we encountered unfamiliar words, Autumn asked me what they meant, helping to expand her vocabulary. Autumn has learned from these books and it has inspired her to find out more about the topics and to get a blanket and pretend to go on adventures like Molly!
It’s also fantastic that they support the curriculum for Key Stage 1. Autumn is currently learning about the Great Fire of London in history, so the second book has been brilliant for supporting her learning. She took it to school, where her teacher read it for the other children to enjoy too. There are lots of teaching ideas in the back, so it would be an excellent resource to have in the classroom. In fact, if you have children like Autumn who enjoy doing learning activities at home, there are some great ideas there – they don’t necessarily have to be done at school!
Autumn’s Thoughts
I usually ask Autumn what she thinks and then summarise it. However, this time Autumn wanted to write it herself in her own words!
An Adventure Around the World
I liked it because Molly McDrew travelled around the world to different countries. I also learned a bit more about the North Pole, Africa, the Amazon rainforest and Paris in France. My favourite thing was that Molly was bored but she figured out a way to not be bored anymore by using her magic and going to explore different countries.
Molly McDrew’s Space Adventure
I liked it because I can see what the planets look like in real life and learn more about them. They visited Mercury, so I’m going to tell you a fact about Mercury. It surprisingly looked like the moon, but a little bit bigger. They visited Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. What I also thought of the book was that it’s very nice because they visited the 8 planets to find a lost ball.
Molly McDrew and the Great Fire of London
I liked this story because she went to London for the day with her family and her mum told her that there was a fire here in 1666. Molly McDrew wondered what it was like in 1666 and used her magic again to go and explore what it was like in 1666 with her little cat Morris. I also liked it because in history at school we’re learning about the Great Fire of London and we’ve learned lots about it. My favourite character is Samuel Pepys because he’s a wonderful man and I just really like him. I also like this book because you can do the magic words like Molly McDrew tells you so you can imagine going to explore the different places.
We were kindly sent the aforementioned books for the purpose of this review. You can buy yours from www.dotters.co.uk, Waterstones, Blackwell’s or Amazon!