ELSA'S ICY RESCUE
Before she was Queen of Arendelle, Elsa was a young princess with a magical gift. Elsa cannot wait to spend time with her family at their summer home. Her powers seem to be getting stronger every day, and their family vacation seems to be the perfect opportunity to test out her icy abilities. But while Anna can spend all day playing outside, Queen Iduna tells Elsa she must continue her lessons to prepare for her future as Queen. As magical mishaps seem to happen more and more, Elsa begins to wonder if she has what it takes to one day become Queen of Arendelle and if the powers she always believed made her special might be a curse after all.

ANNA FINDS A FRIEND
Before Anna saved Elsa in an act of true love, she was a young girl looking for a friend. When Anna's parents, Queen Iduna and King Agnarr, go off on a trip, Anna finds herself lonelier than ever. Her sister, Elsa, seems determined to avoid her, and all Anna wants is a friend to play with. She imagines another girl her own age, Astrid, and sends her a letter. To her surprise, Astrid writes back! But as the two become friends through their letters, Anna begins to wonder if Astrid is closer than she first thought.

We really enjoyed these! I think it is wonderful to have little books like this that aren't intimidating for beginner readers, and feature characters they already love - I feel like it is just enough to give them that extra little nudge into chapter books if they are feeling a bit nervous about transitioning from picture books.The stories were sweet, and I really appreciated that the chapters were short so we could read them together at bedtime - we read them aloud, taking turns to do the actual reading.



Disney has a little series of these books, which are called Disney Princess: Beginnings here in Australia, including stories about all of your favourite Disney Princesses - we actually received the Mulan book earlier this week, and it looks just as lovely as these two - we're looking forward to reading it soon!

xo Bron

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Elsa's Icy Rescue and Anna Finds a Friend
Out now from Scholastic Australia, who kindly sent us these copies for review.

High in a tree house live two very best friends. One is a girl and one is a dog. And everyone knows them as Evie and Pog.

Evie is six years old. She likes knitting and jumping and books and cake.

Pog is a pug. He is two and likes to drink tea and read the newspaper.

Evie and Pog also love to have fun! Join them as they take off on three happy adventures - Puppy School Mess, School Play Drama and Cake Stall Chaos.


Evie and Pog felt quite different to other junior fiction books we've read so far, which have either been firmly in a school setting or very much fantasy with lots of magic. This is somewhere in between, Evie is at school, but also lives in a treehouse with a dog that reads the paper. It is fun and silly and whimsical, and generally just a delight.

The layout of the books is gorgeous - the text and images are spread across the pages in a way that is fun and interesting, but still simple enough for a beginner reader to be able to follow without being confused about their order. We also both loved that there are diagrams and maps throughout the book.

We've been doing lots of reading together - taking it in turns to read pages, or one of us doing the voices - the text is a delight to read out loud. Amelia particularly loves Granny Gladys with her exclamations like "Leaping lamingtons!" and "Pollywolly doodle!"

Clearly Evie and Pog are a hit at our place - we'll be picking up the second book soon, and keeping an eye out for the third when it is released in May. If you'd like to hear a bit more about them from Tania herself, I highly recommend checking out the One More Page podcast (which is always a delight). Tania was a guest on episode 44, and I really enjoyed hearing her discuss not only this book, but her broader work too.

xo Bron

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Evie and Pog Take Off by Tania McCartney
Out now from Harper Collins
Source: We couldn't resist buying this one when we saw it in the bookshop
Recommended Age: 6+ (although I think younger kids would enjoy having this read to them too)
Category: Junior fiction, humor

You can find Tania on her website here and her blog here.