Positive and Inspiring Reading Books for 6-9 Year Olds - And A Giveaway!

Ruby loves to read, she absolutely loves it.  She was delighted to receive book tokens and story books for Christmas.  I'm very happy to indulge this passion with trips to the library, regular bedtime stories and the occasional treat of a new book.

A little while ago we were sent a set of books by Clever Tykes for her to try out. Designed to provide positive role-models, encourage enterprising behaviour and show how to overcome challenges, these stories were sure to not only provide entertainment, but leave young readers feeling empowered.

Ruby chose to read Walk-It Willow first. Given our new puppy's arrival in the home she was drawn to a story where the main character (a girl, which was also a bonus) sets up her own dog-walking business.

She was thoroughly engrossed in the book on our train journey and had read it cover-to-cover by the time we reached our destination.  She loved the illustrations which brought the characters to life, but did feel the story was a little short - she's used to reading longer chapter books now.  Although she's only 7 she is a fairly advanced reader, but of course, all children read at different levels and she certainly found these much more engaging than the books she's used to in her school reading program.

She was able to pick up the key messages about how to be enterprising - good organisation and planning, networking with your contacts, having a positive attitude and utilising your natural talents and interests, as well as key life skills such as admitting your mistakes and learning from them and being honest.

Clever Tykes is a series of storybooks for children ages 6-9, which introduce important life skills and characteristics through positive entrepreneurial role models.  The stories follow three separate protagonists as they each realise that there is something they are especially good at or passionate about, and they set about making this into their own venture. The stories are fantastic reading books in their own right and incorporate the target literacy and numeracy skills for the specific age range. The entrepreneurial messages are subtle whilst important characteristics such as innovation, independence, goal-setting, hard work and resourcefulness are promoted.

There are two other books in the series as well, each with their own stories of entrepreneurialism and problem-solving. Code-it Cody follows a young boy who together with is computer club friends, each have to come up with a new video game.  Will hard work and perseverance win the day? Change-it Cho features sporty Cho who leads a healthy lifestyle and sets about encouraging her school friends to make positive food choices but comes up against lots of opposition from those with a vested interest in children buying sugary treats.

I've been really impressed with this series and how the messages are subtly woven through stories, yet are simple enough for children to understand.

Clever Tykes have been working with schools developing resources for PSHE lessons covering topics such as e-safety, equal opportunities and healthy lifestyle as well as offering the tools to develop enterprise clubs as extra-curricular activities. They have some great resources for teachers and parents on their site and their blog is worth checking out too, I really enjoyed their post 38 ways to make your child more enterprising - full of genuinely useful advice.  My daughter is already showing sparks of entrepreneurialism and is very interested in the fundraising work I do for the PTA, she's always looking for things she can make and sell or innovative ways to raise money for charity, so I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time following Clever Tykes!

The books are available to purchase at £7.99 each, or £19.99 for the set of three.

They have been kind enough to offer the set of three books as a giveaway prize to one lucky reader here.  To be in with a chance, simply tell me below which of the three books you think your child will choose to read first and why, and complete the rafflecopter form.

Disclosure: I was sent a set of books for review and a set will be provided for the winner.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

a Rafflecopter giveaway