The Elves and the Shoemaker; Goldilocks and the Three Bears; The Runaway Chapati

Designed for use with early years children, these three big books form part of the beginning phase of the Cambridge Reading Programme. The choice of the stories is welcome, particularly The EIves and the Shoemaker which is not easy to come by in a quality version, and The Runaway Chapati (a variant of 'The Gingerbread Man'), a favourite tale for telling but not one I have come across in picture book form.

Price's retellings - as one would expect - lend themselves to being read aloud with verve and feeling and make the repetition inherent in each a natural part of the tale. There are speech bubbles too containing the repeated refrains, presumably for the children to read; these are in bold type but for whole class sessions I feel they could have been bigger. The three illustrators have brought their own originality to the familiar characters: Goldilocks is a thoroughly modern miss with trainer boots, stripy tights and mini-skirt while the bears are gorgeously shaggy and huggable; Waterhouse's chapati chasers, particularly tiger, are wide-eyed and wonderful.

These books are well worth adding to the class collection regardless of whether or not you use any other materials from Cambridge Reading.