James had been on a school trip to the history museum in London. In his backpack he’d taken his favourite dinosaur toys with him, unfortunately, his bag had a rip and the dinosaurs had fallen out. James hid from his teacher when the class was going home so he could stay and look for his dinosaurs. He never expected help, especially not from Ollie the Alien who was also visiting the museum.

The first thing that I noticed about Ollie Discovers the Dinosaurs was how beautifully illustrated it is. From the bright colours to the life-like dinosaur skeletons the drawings really brought this book to life.

Ollie is a lovely character who I’ve met once before in ‘Ollie Discovers the Planets‘. I love how helpful and friendly he is and how he’s teaching children not just about planets and dinosaurs but about friendship and kindness too.

The book has facts about different dinosaurs throughout and at the back there are five questions for children to find out the answers too. You can certainly tell this has been written by an ex-teacher.

The book is engaging, informative and a lot of fun. The rhyming text sometimes didn’t quite work but I doubt children will even notice this and this book is aimed at children so I don’t see this being a problem.

I now can’t wait to see where Anya Acres has Ollie visiting next.

About the Author

Anya Acres is the author of the Ollie Discovers the Planets (soon to be a series). She is very passionate about putting enjoyment and pleasure into reading, whatever ability or gender the child might be. She believes that literacy should be available to everyone, and the element of fun, surprises, prediction and familiarity is key.

The inspiration behind the series was developed in 1997, whilst on a teaching practice in a small Derbyshire school. The topic that Anya was asked to teach was ‘planets’ to a class of four year olds; not an easy feat, as young children often respond better to topic-based stories. After hunting high and low for a topic-based story to introduce ‘planets’, Anya resorted to writing her own story; ‘Ollie Discovers the Planets’.

Fast forward twenty years . . . with teaching experience from 4-9 year olds, married with two sons, and a recent redundancy, Anya came across her handwritten ‘Ollie Discover the Planets’ book. Fate, some may say. She then found Megan Green, her fabulous illustrator, and former pupil from many years ago.

Together, with Megan’s beautiful quirky illustrations, and Anya’s talent to combine both fact, fiction and fun to a story, they successfully created ‘Ollie Discovers the Planets’. Many more ‘Ollie Discovers . . .’ books are in the pipeline, with Ollie Discover Dinosaurs to be released later on in the year.