Read Magic Animal Friends – Ellie Featherbill All Alone free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Daisy Meadows' Ellie Featherbill All Alone is a gentle magical adventure for 5 year olds about a little duckling who goes missing on her birthday.
Best friends Lily and Jess are letting a box of rescued ducklings go at the stream when Goldie the cat turns up. That can only mean one thing. Friendship Forest needs them again (it's their third visit).
Through the little door in the Friendship Tree they go, shrinking a bit on the way. It's Ellie's birthday (she's one of the Featherbill ducklings), and all the animals are busy wrapping presents.
But Grizelda the witch has other plans. She floods the river and leaves the girls stuck on a single stepping-stone. Her smelly Boggits wreck the Featherbills' barge, throw the party food overboard and sail off to spoil the river at its source. And little Ellie is still hiding on board in a bucket!
What follows is a rescue with lots of friendly help along the way. Seven turtles in coloured swimming caps make a bridge. Three proud swans pull a silver raft (once Goldie fetches a lost necklace out of a tree). And Mr Cleverfeather the owl flies in with a gadget that tracks down feathers, getting all his words in a muddle as he goes.
That owl will probably get the biggest giggles. The Boggits are more silly than scary too. They squabble, get stuck in hedges and end up lost in a maze, shouting for help.
Ellie is frightened for a while, and so are her parents, who count their ducklings and find one missing. It's all very soft though, and nobody gets hurt.
If your little one loves animals, especially baby ones, this is lovely for bedtime or for a new reader to try on their own. There's always something happening, so it keeps them turning pages. A few American words pop up (Jell-O, sneakers, cookies), which are easy to explain as you go.
If they enjoy two best friends helping out in a magical world, Coco the Cupcake Fairy has Rachel and Kirsty up against Jack Frost's goblins, who are busy spoiling everybody's treats.
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