Horrid Henry's Christmas Play and Horrid Henry's Royal Riot

If you're looking for books for a child who is 5-8 and doesn't like girlie stuff then Horrid Henry is great. Designed for Early Readers the language and layout is simple and not intimidating at all. Very short chapters and natural breaks are throughout the book, so it's easy to stop when your child has had enough. They're perfect for reading together and for a  more independent reader to read alone.

Horrid Henry's Christmas Play

This is the story of the 'Nativity' at Henry's School. He decides his part as Innkeeper just isn't big enough and expands it, with frankly hilarious consequences. My 3 and 5 year old boys spent half of this book with their hands over their mouths stifling giggles.

My 5 year old played the Innkeeper last week in his nativity, so it's ideal and he thought this book was brilliant!

This book is designed for Early Readers and the pictures that accompany the story are great and really descriptive of the story, assisting the reader in setting the tone and working out some of the more tricky words.

Horrid Henry's Christmas Play has 80 pages and an RRP of £4.99. 

Horrid Henry's Royal Riot

This is a big book. It's a full 208 pages and it's hard back. As soon as you open it though you get the familiar easy-to-read layout of Horrid Henry books, with plenty of interesting pages where the text is in different fonts and formats.

Royal Riot is actually a compendium of 4 different books - Horrid Henry's Thank You Letter, Horrid Henry Meets The Queen, Moody Margaret's School and Horrid Henry's Sports Day. Each book is broken up into short chapters exactly as in the original smaller books.

The stories in here include the day when The Queen visited the school, and Henry's plan to be helpful and rich by starting a business writing thank you letters for other people - because the task is so dreadful and boring. Needless to say none of his plans really work as he expects and it all goes a bit awry in a very funny way.

Horrid Henry's Royal Riot has 208 pages and an RRP of £12.99.

My boys both love Horrid Henry books, although obviously for now my 5 year old gets far more from them than my 3 1/2 year old. My 5 year old is enjoying the fact he can join in with the reading with me. They're absolutely ideal for Early Readers and encourage a real love of books and thirst for being able to read.

Horrid Henry books are written by Francesca Simon and illustrated by Tony Ross. They are published by Orion Books.

I was sent the 2 books shown above to review.