Over the course of the three-day trip, poor Malcolm inhabits various farm animal bodies, learning a little about their lives and abilities along the way, and gradually realising who it is he wants to be. And where. But can he get there? He manages to tap into the 'wish fulfilment' genre brilliantly each time, from changing your parents, to having a controller that works on people, and now - turning into another animal! The book is aimed at children aged 8-11, M has just turned 8 and I would say that is a good fit. It definitely works better for independent readers which I think a lot of kids in this age group will be. Like a lot of parents I am always on the look out for new books that will ignite a love of reading in my children. My son used to be an avid reader and we have read most of the Road Dahl books together as well as some other great series’, such as Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. However, since the number of books he has to read for school has increased he has stopped wanting to read purely for fun. Libby makes up lots of unusual acronyms. Can you find out common acronyms for different terms and use them to make an acronym dictionary? Could you make up your own acronyms?

AniMalcolm | BookTrust

I love this book it’d amazing. I especially love when he is different animals. I like all the characters . I would recommend it especially for people who like or love animals Felt maybe the book was a little long as the middle got a little repetitive, but it soon pepped up the humour and good story. Should people be allowed to keep pets? Make a list of the ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments and use them to write a balanced argument about the topic. And thus enter the animals, and the transformation. Most of the book take place on the farm, and we see Malcolm make friends, transform in another animal, find out about what happened to him, and also has a jolly good time as he discovers that being an animal can be quite fun and delightful. A whole world opens up to him, and I laughed quite hard that he had to keep repeating the story over and over again, and had to ask for witnesses (the animals he was previous with). As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and can see it easily being a popular choice for children and could even provide some interesting discussion points. For further reading I would suggest the award winning: The Parent Agency by David Baddiel. Many thanks to the publishers for sending a review copy to The Bookbag.Stewart designs apps. Could you design an app that would be number one in the App Store? What features would it have? Who might use it? The book is also heavily illustrated and I just adored each and every illustration. They made the book really pop and made some of the scenes even more hilarious. Create a persuasive advert to promote the laptop that Malcolm dreams of at the beginning of the book.

AniMalcolm - Teaching Ideas AniMalcolm - Teaching Ideas

Malcolm lives with his family, who are animal daft, in a house full of pets. The problem is he doesn’t like animals. It does make him think differently. And speak differently. And eat differently. And, um, smell differently. But will he end up the same as before? Almost all of the book is from Malcolm's POV, but we also see his Mum and the teacher's POV, I quite liked that those POVs were also added.

Could you conduct a survey to find out the most popular pet / animal of the children in your class? Use this information to generate a report and a variety of charts / graphs. The title of chapter five is ‘The Last Present’. Could you use this as the title for your own story? From David Baddiel, the brightest new star of children’s books and winner of the LOLLIES award, comes a laugh-out-loud adventure for every child who ever wondered what it might be like to be a bit of an animal... Reference Col 1 Times Books A-Z Astronomy Gardening National Parks National Trust Books Road Maps & Atlases World Atlases