Ava's spectacular spectacles by Alice Rex and Angela Perrini

New Frontier, 2017. ISBN 978192059984
(Age 4-7) Highly recommended. Sight. Spectacles. Fairy tales. Ava sits at her desk in the classroom and can't see the board. She doesn't want to wear her glasses and keeps them in her bag. Then her sympathetic teacher tells her of the fairy tale characters who would have had much happier outcomes if only they had used their glasses to find their way.
The narrative is very clever and interesting. Children would respond to the authors using fairy tales to depict why wearing glasses would be very useful. The narrative would also help children who do not need glasses begin to understand why some people need them.
Bold illustrations make this story stand out. Keen readers will spot the glasses case in Ava's bag in the beginning of the book. They will also be able to follow the expressions on her face changing from miserable when she can't see the front of the classroom to a huge smiling face as she begins to read on the last page. I loved the picture of Humpty Dumpty wearing specs and not falling off the wall while on the opposite page are the guards who could have put him together again when they could see using their glasses. The picture of a gleeful Ava being little Miss Muffet with glasses to see the big spider and using her fly spray is very humorous.
This would be a lovely book to give a child who has just been given spectacles and is feeling worried about how friends will react and could also be used in the classroom when doing units of work on sight and seeing.
Pat Pledger