Alien Invasion! – iSkyNews

Matt Davies rated it it was amazing

This book contains two stories about Farmer Rafferty and the animals that live on Mudpuddle Farm. Wether it is alien invasions or the strangely happy goat Egbert, Albertine, and her chorus of adoring goslings, is there for them with her helpful advice. This book makes great use of the illustrations, which are fully integrated as story telling tools, almost venturing into graphic novel territory. This greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the text and makes it much more accessible to younger readers. This book contains two stories about Farmer Rafferty and the animals that live on Mudpuddle Farm. Wether it is alien invasions or the strangely happy goat Egbert, Albertine, and her chorus of adoring goslings, is there for them with her helpful advice. This book makes great use of the illustrations, which are fully integrated as story telling tools, almost venturing into graphic novel territory. This greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the text and makes it much more accessible to younger readers. The stories themselves are also really fun in a way which doesn’t involve meanness or cruelty, so this was a welcome relief after reading Horrid Henry. I think this book would be great for reading as a whole class or independently, and it could also be used to teach students about animals or geography (drawing maps of the farm for example). …more

This book is the collection of two stories
1. Martians at Mudpuddle Farm
2. Mum’s the Word

Two stories are filled with fun and illustrations add more fun to the stories.

Tuyet Truong rated it really liked it

Witty and humorous with illustrations on every page to give it an almost comic book feel.

This is a story about a large family of animals that live on Mudpuddle Farm. Each animal has its own unique characteristic, from Diana the silly sheep to Albertine the most intelligent goose. On his first solo trip to gather pollen, Little Bee ends up getting lost, leading to a whole swarm of bees going out in search of him. All the farm animals are terrified of the bees, except for Albertine the clever goose, who leads all the animals to the middle of Farmer Rafferty’s cornfield and shows them how to get rid of the bees. Albertine’s method results in a huge circular patch being left in the middle of the cornfield, which the animals think that Farmer Rafferty will not be too pleased about. However, instead of being angry, Farmer Rafferty is overjoyed because he believes that the circular patch was left by Martians landing there, giving him a great money making idea.

Children who find books with a lot of text tiresome to read may find this book more enjoyable, as part of the fun is reading the humorous comments within the speech and thought bubbles of the illustrations.
…more

KS1 for independent readers or class read. Engaging layout of text, pictures and different fonts makes it visually appealing and breaks the text into more manageable chunks for more reluctant readers. Lovely descriptive use of language, and use of speech bubbles, so could be used to introduce the idea of including speech in writing. All is not as it seems in each story, lending amusement and an interesting twist to each tale.