Jacob's Little Giant ¦ The Little Lighthouse Keeper ¦ Hild at Allotment Lane School ¦ Ragdolly Anna's Treasure Hunt

I have listed all four of these books together because they seem to me to provide perfect examples of the current publishers' obsession with labelling books as for this or that 'level' of reading and to demonstrate the absurdity of this trend.

These are excellent books; I, and the children, thoroughly enjoyed all four. 'Allotment Lane' has long been a favourite school with us, the adventures of the 'Little Lighthouse Keeper' were full of excitement, the gentle world of 'Ragdolly Anna' made a pleasant contrast to the other two books and Jacob's Little Giant took us to the unfamiliar and wild world of the Canada Geese and the boy who cares for them. All are highly recommended for children of five to eightish whether to listen to or to read, with or without help.

However. Puffin have decided to divide these books by labelling them with a flash on the front cover. Jacob's Little Giant is a 'Story Book'; The Little Lighthouse Keeper is a 'Read Alone'; Hild and Ragdolly Anna are labelled 'Read Aloud'. What is the purpose of this and what criteria were used? As far as I can see, it all comes down to size of print, for there is no suggestion that vocabulary has been controlled in any way or that there has been any sort of readability check. Big print means 'Read Alone' (from what sort of age?). Medium print means 'Read Aloud' (presumably by an adult) although my young readers found it much easier to read Hild for themselves than The Little Lighthouse Keeper because the setting was so familiar. Small print means a 'Story Book', although there is no reason why it should be labelled differently from 'Read Aloud' or 'Read Alone'. They are all story books and what the child is able to do with them will depend solely on the child.

This sort of silliness does not help either reader or book to find their right relationship. I would advise using all of these books with your children but ignore the labels; they will give quite erroneous impressions.