Bug Club Phonics - Phase 2 Unit 1-2: Alphablocks It is a Din

You can buy a learning to read pack of alphablocks magazines and bits on the web for only £30, and this was bought to supplement that. My little ones loves having a book she can decode, even though she only knows 8 letters so far!

These books are amazing for beginners, go together with DVD and magazine set bought from a different supplier. They also always make kids laugh when they read, so they are happy to read again and again. I hope they organise a set!

Another instalment from the prolific pen of Joe Elliott, following the excellent “Pop! Pop! Pop!” and the disappointing “look what I can do”, this finds our hero “I” in a more dystopian landscape consisting of outsize pots and pans, an obvious metaphor for his sense of entrapment in today’s society. Becoming ever more like “Nineteen eighty four’s” Winston Smith in this book, “I”, won’t be chained to convention and strives to break free from the thought police watching his every move. As he moves on through the pages creating atonal sounds like a young Lou Reed at odds with the melody obsessed establishment. The illustrations by the trio of Neil Sutherland, Blue-Zoo and Tony Trimmer add to the general claustrophobic air and heighten the feeling of alienation towards “I”. This reader cannot help but sympathise with “I’s” frustrations, shouting along that “it is a din!” over and over until the world finally listens. “Pan “leads to “nap” (maybe the ultimate nap?) and the pages fly by at a brisk pace. Careering through a nightmare landscape the other characters look on disapprovingly as “I” bangs his drum to a world that just won’t listen. Like Jason searching for the Golden Fleece, “I” keeps on in his inevitably futile quest for phonic gratification. I enjoyed the book thoroughly but wonder how much further Joe Elliott can take “I” in this series of adventures into the linguistic unknown. It’s not all roses though, some reviewers have been perturbed by Elliott’s admittedly sparse wordplay, and I’ll leave it to “Nataliya” feeding back on Amazon to leave this final damning review; “contains few words. Shoking (sic)”.

contains very few words. shoking