Any regular readers might remember that I recently reviewed a couple of early reader books from Orion. These are for age 5+ and although they were more on the challenging side for Mr Z he did enjoy them and I am keen to have slightly trickier books available for him to help him to push himself and progress more with his reading.
As another month has passed and Mr Z has now turned 5, I decided to give it another go with another new Early reader – This time “Shumba’s Big Adventure”
This is of a similar length and level to the Early Readers we previously reviewed. I felt like it was slightly easier for him to read from the first chapter and a little more complex as it went on, both in words and content. It starts off telling you about a naughty cheeky like lion cub, then suddenly he ends up kidnapped and heading for a zoo far away from his family. It does have mild peril in it due to these happenings, and I would say a child of a really sensitive nature could be quite upset – although it does have a happy ending with Shumba being reunited back with his family!
Mr Z enjoyed the story. He was still not able to read the full book independently but he has had a good try, both at reading aloud for me, and sitting himself with the book and trying his best to read through. I’m really happy with this so I want to keep encouraging him to try these kind of books as I can’t wait til I can see him able to sit and read a full book like this by himself – I will be so proud! I know how much enjoyment he could get from all the stories out there, and I feel that these books are a great step on his journey towards independent reading. I hope to try more of these as time goes on so I can see how Mr Z is progressing with them.
I would recommend any of the Orion Early Readers to children of around 5years+ as the guidelines state. There is a lot of variety available so you can easily find one that will appeal to your children’s interests. Mr Z liked the idea of this book as he felt the name Shumba reminds him of Simba from the Lion King. I must say I found the name Shumba so cute myself! If we happen to get any new Lion cuddly toys any time soon it will definitely be called Shumba! 😀 Mr Z also recognised the message from the story that Shumba should have listened to his parents and not kept wandering off, then he would have avoided getting into such a difficult situation!