Jake and the Red Bird. By Raghnild Scamell. Illustrated by Valeria Petrone.

Digging For Dinosaurs. By Judy Waite. Illustrated by Garry Parsons.

The Magic Backpack. By Julia Jarman. Illustrated by Adriano Gon.

Sherman Swaps Shells. By Jane Clarke. Illustrated by Ant Parker.

Shadowhog. by Sandra Ann Horn. Illustrated by Mary McQuillan. Red Fox pound;3.99 each. Available through TES Direct.

The Adventures of Bert. by Allan Ahlberg. Illustrated by Raymond Briggs. Viking pound;9.99. TES Direct pound;8.99.

ROCKETS SERIES. Silly Sausage stories. Sausage In Trouble Sausage and the Spook School For Sausage Sausage and the Little Visitor. By Michaela Morgan and Dee Shulman.

Motley’s Crew stories. Kevin and the Pirate Test Smudger and the Smelly Fish Doris’s Brilliant Birthday. By Margaret Ryan and Margaret Chamberlain. A amp; C Black pound;3.99 each. TES Direct pound;3.49 each.

Fox Tales series. Totally Trevor. By Rob Lewis. The Megamogs in Moggymania. By Peter Haswell. Red Fox pound;3.99 each. TES Direct pound;3.49 each.

Most children make their first steps towards independent reading in school, so is it desirable that the writers of early-reading books make overt connections with other areas of the curriculum?

This is a question posed by Flying Foxes, a new series of early readers designed as a transition from picture books to longer texts. Each title also has a learning focus. Mary Murphy’s All The Little Ones is a clever numerical fable, with clear curriculum links to maths (fractions, number bonds, 100 squares) and citizenship (collective strength, working together). The Little One characters are endearing squares with eyes on stalks. Seven of them share a house with a Half, who is always being left out. Occasionally a Two or a Three passes by. One day, a big bad number, a Hundred, demands the Little Ones’ house. The community of small numbers gathers together and, of course, it’s the little Half that tips the balance. Certain to become a hot favourite at key stage 1, with demand for a big book version.

If the other titles in the first batch (Random House plans to add to the series each September) can’t quite match the simple originality of Mary Murphy’s idea and therefore strain to make their “learning focus” connections, each title is appealing and all the books are exceptionally well-designed.

Jake and the Red Bird has fun with the notion of a painting “leaping off the page”. Jake, on a visit to an art gallery, is exhorted to create a picture in the “vibrant” style of Van Gogh. He paints a red bird, which flies off the page and begins eating the seeds in one of the gallery’s sunflower paintings.

Digging for Dinosaurs is a positive look at museums that promotes the questioning of evidence. The Magic Backpack explores the geographical origins of the ingredients of a chocolate cake and has a sympathetic angle on forgetfulness. Sherman Swaps Shells is about an image-conscious young shellfish; and Shadowhog is about a hedgehog first scared by and then playing with moonshadows (Science link).

Enter Bert, in a learning-focus-free zone. A wonderfully breezy and anarchic collaboration between Allan Ahlberg and Raymond Briggs, The Adventures of Bert is a picture book divided into chapters, in which Bert has surreal adventures, including being chased by a sausage. As you’d expect, Ahlberg’s short, declarative sentences are wittily interpreted by Briggs, working here in a more expansive style than usual. Everyone who sets eyes on this book will want to see many more of Bert’s adventures.

The Silly Sausage titles in A amp; C Black’s Rockets series are also great fun. These graphic, short chapter books - each story features a battle of wits between Sausage the dog and two mean cats, Fitz and Spatz - are highly recommended. With lots of speech bubbles but nevertheless a slightly higher reading content, Motley’s Crew (in the same series) is a sequence of slapstick pirate stories, featuring Squawk the parrot, who speaks in rhyme and functions as a sort of chorus. Also recommended, and free of any pedagogical overlay.

The Fox Tales series is pitched at children who are building reading confidence. Each title contains three linked stories. A favourite of mine is Totally Trevor by Rob Lewis. The opening story has an impatient Trevor tampering with the presents under the Christmas tree, much to his goody-goody sister’s disgust. Trevor the terrapin has animation potential. Another Fox Tale to look out for is The Megamogs in Moggymania by Peter Haswell. The hilarious illustrations and wisecracking storyline are capable of amusing children who might feel that they have moved beyond the first reader stage, which is why it’s so important not to classify books too rigidly.

MICHAEL THORN

Michael Thorn is deputy head of Hawkes Farm primary school, Hailsham, East Sussex