The wisdom of the fable through the eyes of modern children. A series of books following traditional pathways of storytelling towards issues and solutions of our times.

Emma Calin has worked with the Philippines based talented anime/manga artist Miko Abellera,
to create this collection of illustrated chapter-book stories for 6-12 year olds.

Each book features interactive bonus links, via URLs for digital readers (e.g. Kindle, iPad) or by scannable QR codes for paperback readers. The links lead to free downloads of pictures for colouring, as well as photos and video and audio clips to enrich the story and bring the characters to life.

Alf The Workshop Dog

How could a scruffy dog in a bus depot and the call of crows, link back to another world of power and love?
The ancient Kingdom of Zanubia and a stray dog looking for scraps in an inner-city repair garage, hold the secret. A wicked king, a beautiful girl, a young prince and the struggle between right and wrong maintain the fable tradition.

ISBN: 1502479583 Kindle ASIN:B00NWQ96PE Audio book ASIN:B00OBT8RDI GENRE: Children’s Fiction

Isabella’s Pink Bicycle

There’s something strange in the woodshed…
A poor little girl in a faraway land dreams of riding a pink bicycle. When she meets a strange animal, her dreams come true. Her happiness turns to sadness when a tragedy occurs in the town and her father doesn’t come home. Maybe her new magic friend can find him?

ISBN: 150323407X Kindle ASIN: B00OFQO0WY Audio book ASIN:B00P1O1XLK GENRE: Children’s Fiction

Kool Kid Kruncha and The High Trapeze

Charlie finds it tough when his parents divorce – but Auntie Kate helps him overcome his greatest fear.
When Charlie has to move from the country into the city, he needs new friends. With his small size and red hair, some people aren’t kind to him.
He wonders if he can face another day at school. A trip to the circus gives him the strength to see himself and others in a new way.

ISBN:1503267105 Kindle ASIN: B00OFSNQL8 Audio book ASIN: B00PX8V76K GENRE: Children’s Fiction

Thanks to CandleLit for my review copy of Alf The Workshop Dog. I enlisted the help of my 8 year old son to give a parent and child overview of the story.

From a Dad’s viewpoint Alf the Workshop Dog was a great reading experience with my son. The story caught his imagination and the promise of the interactive elements to the book were a great incentive for him to try to prolong his bedtime story each night.

The integration of story and additional content through digital media is a great idea and worked well as a hook to get my son reading a story that he may not normally have considered.

My son is keen to muscle in on my blog so I asked him to provide me with his own review of Alf The Workshop Dog. After much consideration we established the following:

“It was great fun to read about Zanubia but I did not like the King very much. I like when I can go to You Tube and watch the videos and things at the end of some of the chapters. My favourite was when we sang the national anthem.”  To interject at this stage – we sang the anthem FREQUENTLY.

Back to the boy: “I liked to read on my Kindle for a change as normally my books are paper or comics” (keeping him off the other apps was a challenge). “The story was good and I read loads when you were at work as I didn’t want to wait for bedtime” (always love when he reads so I cannot complain too much that he was reading ahead). ” I didn’t like the King but I liked how the story ended, it made me feel happy” (at this stage I hear echoes of his teacher trying to explain to me at Parent’s Night how they will tackle Book Reviews for 8/9 year olds – How the story made me feel was right up there)

A hit in our household – Alf The Workshop Dog was read over a few nights and has been revisited already, especially the video of the Zanubian National Anthem. Lots of fun and a nice way to round off the day for us both.