Frogs do not like Dragons (Blue Bananas)

Product Description
Lola has been locked in the bathroom by a witch!. And there’s a dragon and some frogs stuck in there too. As everyone knows, frogs do not like dragons… Who will rescue Lola before they all get too cross?

Blue Bananas
There is a big difference between Green and Blue Bananas and parents and teachers need to be aware of this.
These would suit children reading at NC level 2. first class ages 7 to 8
These books contain one single story and so offer children the chance to read a longer book and learn to sustain their reading. They may still need to read it in more than one session, but will be beginning to make their own decisions about where to have a break. This will again involve them in the process of re-capping the story before continuing reading but this time with the additional challenges that a single story raises. Rising to these challenges will help to build their reading stamina and confidence.

Reading challenges and support offered by the books:
The language of these books is more challenging. There is some difficult vocabulary and the writers use a variety of complex sentences which means that children have to be proficient at maintaining meaning with longer units and be good at using punctuation well to do this. Children may need to be taught how to do this and supported with it during reading.
Reading aloud to a parent will help identify difficult new vocabulary and ensure that children do not lose the key ideas in the book through simple misconceptions.
Within the books there are language features such as similes and word play. For many children these kinds of language- play obscure meaning and they may need to have ideas explained.
The humour in some of the books (Jenny Nimmo’s Matty Mouse is a good example) depends on understanding that many words have two meanings. This becomes clearer for children if they read the stories aloud – as many of the jokes are linked to the sounds of words rather than the spelling. Children may also need to discuss the jokes and explore the whole idea of this kind of word play through other jokes and rhymes.
The books begin to explore feelings in greater depth and how these can motivate behaviour and influence events in stories. Again, children will benefit from talking about these.
The speech bubbles in these books offer more than repeating dialogue within the text and again children might need to discuss when and how to read them.