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.

Sue Graves

Sue Graves has been a freelance children’s author for more than 17 years. She has written over two hundred books for children from pre-school up to 15+ years. She writes fiction and non-fiction, plays and poetry across the age ranges.

Sue loves reading all sorts of books and is at her happiest when she has a book in her hand. She also loves painting in watercolours, playing tennis and badminton and going for long walks in the country with her husband and children.

Rachael Corcutt

Rachael and Phillippa are twin sisters and illustrators and live in Derbyshire. They graduated from the University of Derby with a First Class (Hons) Degree in Illustration and were shortlisted for the Stratford Picture Book prize in 2020. They now work as freelance illustrators, creating illustrations for children’s books, educational books and magazines. They love to create whimsical and magical worlds inspired by nature, wildlife and childhood memories. They also paint sculptures for Wild in Art.