Julia Donaldson's Songbirds: My Phonics Story Collection Award-winning team

With a focus on building phonics skills, this Read with Oxford Stages 1-2: Songbirds Story Collection contains 12 fun phonics stories to provide perfect practice for beginner readers. Read what life is like being small with Bob Bug, find out who is top cat and much more! The kit also contains colourful stickers, and an alphabet chart to reward, motivate and build confidence. Tips for reading together explain the sounds that each story focuses on and identify any words children may find tricky, helping you to get the most out of the collection. Former Children’s Laureate and author of The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson, has captivated children all over the world with her lively and engaging stories. Songbirds is a phonics programme carefully created by Julia to support children who are learning to read and is used in schools to inspire a love of reading. Featuring much-loved characters, great authors, engaging storylines and fun activities, Read with Oxford offers an exciting range of carefully levelled reading resources to build your child’s reading confidence. Find practical advice, free eBooks and fun activities to help your child progress on oxfordowl.co.uk. Let’s get them flying!

Not suitable for children under 3 years of age. Small parts.

Product Details

Format

Paperback

ISBN

9780192764867

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Date published

May 3rd, 2018

Condition

New

Author/Illustrator

Julia Donaldson

Julia Donaldson is author of many of today’s best-loved picture books including The Gruffalo and Stick Man. Best known for her collaborations with Axel Scheffler, each of these vivid rhyming stories is a triumph of imagination. She was also the Children’s Laureate 2011-2013.

More about Julia: “I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).

Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us.

I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.

Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.

The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children’s television.

One of my television songs, A Squash and a Squeeze, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published.

My real breakthrough was The Gruffalo, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately – he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow – but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes.

My novel The Giants and the Joneses is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic Princess Mirror-Belle who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old.

When I’m not writing I am often performing, at book festivals and in theatres. I really enjoy getting the children in the audience to help me act out the stories and sing the songs.”