Algy's Amazing Adventures At Sea from Orion Children's Books (Early Reader)

Algy's Amazing Adventures At Sea is a new book in the Orion Early Readers. Written by Kaye Umansky and illustrated by Richard Watson, this is a Red Band book suitable for children who are beginning to read independently and who can work out more words for themselves.

The story follows Algy, a little boy who has a secret. There is another world behind a loose plank at the back of Algy's shed.

Algy, his friend Cherry and her little brother Brad go on adventures in the secret world inside the shed. This time they find the sea!

They also find some angry pirates, and their adventure has a little peril and a lot of humour but in the end all is well and everyone is happy.

This is a great book for a new reader. The text is really well-spaced out, and repetitive enough that it doesn't intimidate my 5 1/2 year old. There are a new and tricky words, but they're repeated to reinforce them immediately and so my son at least wasn't put off at all. The storyline is interesting and intriguing, and really keeps you wondering what's going to happen next.

The illustrations in Algy's Amazing Adventures At Sea are really nicely done. The pirates look quite terrifying at first, especially the Captain with his hairy nostrils, and the faces are very expressive. There is good use of bright colour, which works really well with the sea, sky and sand.

This is a 'proper' book, with 62 pages split into 6 easy chapters, so your child doesn't feel obliged to try and read it all at once,and if they're new to longer texts, they can continue to feel a sense of progression and achievement.

My boys liked this book a lot, and so do I. The ending was a real surprise - we think we know what's bothering the Pirate Captain, but we're wrong. It's a nice, clever twist.

Algy's Amazing Adventures At Sea is published by Orion Books and has an RRP of £ 4.99. 

We've reviewed several Early Readers in the Blue Band (for reading together) and the Red Band (the next step in reading). All of my children's book reviews can be found on this page. 

We were sent our copy of this book for review.