Ella and Olivia - 1 - Cupcake Catastrophe product reviews

Miss Five writes "I like the Cupcake Catastrophe book because I can read it by myself. I also liked it when mummy read it to me. It was really easy to read. When I read it I looked at the pictures. The story was funny and it was really cool. My favourite bit was when the dad said "I will never forget about your lovely cupcakes." "

As evidenced by above my Miss Five really loved this book. She even asked if she could write the review and typed the above!!

These books really are fantastic. The plot is very simple and it is very simply written. This is a fantastic series to get your little Miss confident about moving on to the next stage from basic picture readers. Pretty much every page has a picture (in black and white) related to the story and the type is clear and large with very short paragraphs. The sentances are very basic i.e "Ella and Olivia are sisters. Ella is seven years old. Olivia is five-and-a-half years old. They live with their mum and dad and little brother Max." This is perfect for the aimed at reading age of five years plus and the book perfectly meets that age group.

My Miss Five is really proud of herself to be able to read these books by herself and it has given her a lot more confidence in her abilities. She loves these books so much she proudly shows them to everyone! Surprisingly my Miss Four really enjoyed listening to me read this (she prefers colour picture books) and was pointing to words (especially the words in big bold type) wanting me to tell her what they said. What I liked about this book as well is it takes a simple concep,t of baking cupcakes, but turns it into a very funny situation and gives a basis to talk about how to avoid making the same mistake etc.

I will definitely be looking out for further books in this series so keep them coming!!

As a former primary school teacher and a mum of two young daughters, this book immediately appealed to me. This book is designed as a first chapter book for a reading age of about seven years. The font is very large and there are illustrations on every double page.

I read it to my nearly four year old in one sitting. It was the first time I had read a chapter book to her and she loved it. She could relate to the story of baking with her mum and sister. She also liked the idea of a surprise for daddy's birthday. There were a couple to words I had to explain to her, including catastrophe, but nothing major that lost the flow of the story. We have also been given the second Ella and Olivia book to read and we can't wait to read it tonight and find out about their next adventure.

These books are ideal for reading to a four to six year old. A six to eight year old could read it by themselves (depending on their reading ability). This is a book that my daughter will be asking for again and again and will get mileage out of because of the wide range it caters for. She also has a 2 year old sister that doesn't have the attention span for it at the moment but will enjoy listening to it in a couple of years time.