Marty Moose: First Class Mischief

The move from picture books to novels is one of the defining milestones for any young reader. But the leap from The Gruffalo to The Famous Five can be a daunting one- and in recent years there has been a surge in short, illustrated chapter books intended to bridge the gap. The most successful tend to be those that combine the progressive plot of a longer novel with the clear, visual narrative of a picture book- and Marty Moose, the first in a new series by the author and illustrator Claire Powell, is just such an example […] Beneath Marty’s fur lies a recognisably human heart, and one of the more satisfying threads of the stories lies in his tightening bond with Nibbles […] At 156 pages long, Marty Moose is still a big jump from The Grufffalo. But the moral, spelled out in a letter to Marty from Great-Aunt Ada, is similarly clear: “Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can’t be brave.