KIDLIT :: Monty’s Island 3: Elvis Eager and the Golden Egg :: Emily Rodda & Lucinda Gifford

Monty’s Island 3: Elvis Eager and the Golden Egg

The most unexpected things wash up on Monty’s Island. And a golden egg might be his most amazing find yet!
But when a pair of flying monsters and a mysterious explorer arrive, it seems the egg is about to hatch into a very big problem.
Can Monty find a way to solve it? Surely he can! All he needs is a little help from his friends. And the Hairy Horrible.

We have been loving Emily Rodda’s newest fantasy series, Monty’s Island, and Monty’s latest adventure was no exception!
We loved how fun and silly these books are – now that there have been a few books in the series we have gotten to know the characters a bit, and it cracks my 7 year old up when she predicts that Tawny will say “Puh!”, or that Clink will do something foolish to get his beak on some treasure.

Her favourite part of this one was meeting Ickle (the cutie pictured there on the cover) and she thought the twist in the plot was “mind blowing”.
I love the releationships between the characters, and seeing the way Monty puzzles things out to find solutions.

As always the illustrations, by Lucinda Gifford, are absolute perfection and really bring the story to life – we read this one together and spent quite a bit of time pausing our reading for a closer look.

I really think these are great books for newly independent/emerging readers, or to read together with your kids. I feel like the reading level is a bit more complex than some of the really early chapter books for new readers, but also they aren’t as intimidating as some books at this level because the text is so well supported by the illustrations – I think this makes them a really satisfying and encouraging book for readers to tackle themselves. Something else I like about the formatting of these is that some words are in different text for emphasis – we talked a bit about what sorts of words these were when my daughter read aloud – and there is lots of opportunity for discussion about what’s happening in the story and what we predict might happen next.

A definite thumbs up all around for this book, and the series makes for perfect summer school holiday entertainment – we have our fingers crossed that more will be on the way. You can see my review of the first book in the series here, and I also talked a bit about the series in this post on books for junior readers too.

xo Bron
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Monty’s Island: Elvis Eager and the Golden Egg by Emily Rodda and Lucinda Gifford
Out now from Allen and Unwin.
Source: Free copy kindly sent to us by the team at Allen and Unwin (thank you!). All views are my own
Category: Junior reader (age 6+) adventure fantasy
Format: Illustrated paperback (157 pages)
Australian RRP: $14.99

Find Emily Rodda online here.
Find Lucinda Gifford online here.