Sir Thomas More by Hals Holbein (Accessed via Wikipedia ) During lockdown, we had Time. Remember that? I was in my probationary year of teaching: almost certainly among the most exhausting years for any profession. All my time had been taken up with school work, and I regularly stayed at school until after 6pm, having arrived there at eight in the morning. Now, children, this is not sustainable and, very soon, I decided I didn’t like working where I was. Then I realised that I didn’t like teaching at all. But, in fact, neither was particularly true: I just needed to be true to myself and to say no, which would give me the ability to manage my work/life balance in a more appropriate way. What does this have to do with historical fiction, I hear you say? Well, during March 2020, we went into lockdown and suddenly I went from working ten-hour-days to ten-hour-weeks. I met up with my class on Google Meet, I put work up for them on a meticulously designed Google Classroom, but I just h...
This is a lovely story about Norman, a little bat who is perfectly happy with his “particularly average life” until he accidentally ends up going on a series of amazing adventures. He is kidnapped, he goes into space, he is trained to save the world! It’s a great thing to teach children about how exciting things can happen despite modest beginnings! Throughout the book, he meets friends like him and others who are very different, a fantastic thing to encourage children to embrace friendships with others from various backgrounds.
The story is enhanced by exciting illustrations which show the variety of characters as they undertake their adventures. I absolutely fell in love with the Overwatchers, and the villains were wonderfully dastardly!
The tone is perfect for 5-7 year olds, but the language used in the story is really advanced for a child to read themselves. It is somewhere between a picture book and a chapter book. I would recommend it as a book for an adult to read to a child, while the young audience will undoubtedly love to follow along with the fabulous illustrations. Some of the turns of phrase also lend themselves to being read aloud, like the use of question/answer paragraphs.
All in all, Norman Space Bat will provide a lovely story to read aloud with your little ones, or for an older child to read to a younger sibling. There are a lot of life lessons to be learnt from Norman’s adventures, but they’re done in a way which isn’t too heavy handed. And if you don’t just fall in love with the Overwatchers then I don’t know what to say!
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