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)

This sweet and surprising story stars Meera, her parents and their back garden visitor, Spike the hedgehog. Meera loves when Spike comes to call in the evenings, but when she and the family have a big garden clear-out, will Spike still find the garden cosy enough for a wander?

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

Fantastic, original 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

Ellie O'Shea

Ellie is a coffee addict, an avid snowboarder and bad joke-teller. She completed her degree in Illustration in Plymouth and now lives in Worcester with her (equally bad joke-telling) boyfriend. They both love lazy Sundays watching cartoons all day, Ellie’s biggest inspiration for drawing! She has always loved watching cartoons and when she was around 8 she decided, “Hey, I want to draw like that!” So she picked up her pencil, and here we are. Ellie loves writing and illustrating children’s books, starting with scribbles before drawing and colouring up in Illustrator and Photoshop. When she’s not doodling or drinking coffee, you will usually find her shopping for makeup, binge-watching cartoons or watching pug videos online. “Yes, I am an adult, why do you ask?”