This story is part of Reading Champion, a series carefully linked to book bands to encourage independent reading skills, developed with Dr Sue Bodman and Glen Franklin of UCL Institute of Education (IOE)

Reading Champion offers independent reading books for children to practise and reinforce their developing reading skills.

Fantastic stories are accompanied by engaging artwork and a reading activity. Each book has been carefully graded so that it can be matched to a child’s reading ability, encouraging reading for pleasure.

Damian Harvey

Damian Harvey lives in North Wales with his lovely wife, Vicky. He has three wonderful daughters, one brilliant boy and a cat called Polly. He has written more than 130 books for primary school aged children and is busy writing more. When he isn’t writing, Damian loves visiting schools, libraries, bookshops, festivals and anywhere that will have him, where he shares stories, talks about writing and gets people excited about books and reading. You can find out more about Damian by visiting http://www.damianharvey.co.uk and follow him on Twitter @damianjharvey

Richard Watson

Richard Watson has illustrated many children’s books including the hilarious James Patterson Dog Diaries series, written by Junior, the first dog author to top the New York Times Bestseller list. He mainly sits underneath the stairs drawing stuff and enjoys guitars, long walks in the woods and spooky things. Richard is represented by the Bright Agency.