After reading and enjoying Tracey Corderoy’s Hubble Bubble books, I spotted this on the shelf in the library so picked it up to read with Pippa.
The book is about 2 dogs – Shifty and Sam who, as well as being bakers, solve mysteries and crimes with the help of inventive baking gadgets from their ‘Bakemobile’.
There are 3 different stories in the book, each split in to 4 chapters. It is easy to read either 2 chapters for a short bedtime reading session or a whole story in one night. There are fabulous detailed 3 colour illustrations on every page which are ideal in an early chapter book.
This was a lot of fun to share with Pippa, the characters are lovable and the events caused us lots of laughs with Pippa oohing and predicting what the ‘baddy’ might get up to.
When I asked Pippa what she had enjoyed, she said she liked it when they caught the robbers because they used cakes and it was a happy ending. She likes both characters because they are funny.
After finishing this story I looked up other Shifty books and found out that, like the Hubble Bubble series, the first few are picture books and set the scene in which Shifty and Sam stop being burglars as they are better at baking cakes!
When discussing the story with Henry and daddy, we remembered that one of the children had, earlier in the school year, brought home the first book from the school library!
The Spooky School is the first of the Shifty and Sam early chapter style books, with currently only one other available – Shifty McGifty & Slippery Sam – Up, Up and Away.
Guess what we found in the library and started tonight!
Review to follow soon…