Tori is enjoying reading at the moment – and I hope this is something that continues – but what are her favourite things to read now she is edging toward her sixth birthday?

Dinosaur Cove – The Cretaceous Adventures by Rex Stone

Tori received the first book in this series as a prize from school and we read it together at bed time and fell in love. Before we had made it to the end I had tracked down the rest of the set (with help from my mum, of course!) because we simply *had* to have them.

The stories are fairly short – about six chapters long – but they are fast paced and exciting with every chapter ending on a real cliffhanger making it very hard to read just one at bed time! The stories follow friends Tom and Jamie on their adventures in Dino World discovered after they slipped through the back of a cave and found magic fossil footprints leading to the Cretaceous Period. There are lots of fun facts about dinosaurs woven into the story so Tori is learning lots without even realising it!

Peace At Last by Jill Murphy

This used to be one of my favourites too and Tori loves to read it to herself almost daily. I think she just about knows it off by heart now – there are definitely times she is looking purely at the pictures as she says the words!

A simple story we can all relate to – sometimes all you want to do is sleep and it seems like EVERYTHING is conspiring against you, especially that endlessly dripping tap…

Dragon Danger by Roderick Hunt

Ah, Biff, Chip and Kipper. Every five year old’s best friend. Tori has a set of these books at home and this one, about Floppy and a dragon, is her favourite at the moment. She reads it almost every day to herself in bed and often picks it to read to me at bed time in place of whatever her school reading book may be.

Robot Dog by Mark Oliver

We got this out of the library a while back and Tori cried when I had to take it back. It’s a very sweet story about Scrap the robot dog and his reject robot dig friends and their wish for an owner of their own. Because every dog wants an owner, even dented and slightly faulty robot dogs.

Dinosaur Chase by Benedict Blathwayt

Yup, more dinosaurs!

Better known for his Little Red Train stories, it turns out Mr Blathwayt has a soft side for dinosaurs as well – we have this and another one in the series about a little dinosaur called Fin. It is a good fun book and the pictures are brilliant and detailed. It always takes ages to read because we stop and chat about what we can see on each page before turning to the next one. Another regular bedtime story book, this has been one of Tori’s favourite for several months.