Bertha & Blink: Rumble in the Jungle by Nicola Colton – Early Chapter Book Recommendations

Bertha & Blink: Rumble in the Jungle Early Chapter Book

This blog posts will give you a review and inside images of new title Bertha & Blink by Nicola Colton. As well as activity sheets to accompany the book. It will also explain the importance of early chapter books in developing life long readers.

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Early chapter books are a group of books that I feel very passionate about. Too often as children move from picture books shared with parents/ carers to chapter books the jump can be too big.

Thankfully, in recent years there has been great movement in superb titles designed exactly for this in between stage. That gap between picture books and chapter books.

Supporting children to continue their reading journey at this point is crucial. It’s what makes the difference between stopping reading for pleasure and becoming life long readers. It’s essential that we expose children to these wonderful additions to the book world.

If you’d like to find out about other early chapter books and inside images to see what might tempt your young reader then check out this post – Reading Chapter Books – What to Read after Picture Books? Early Chapter Book Joy.

Bertha & Blink: Rumble in the Jungle by Nicola Colton Book Review

Bertha & Blink: Rumble in the Jungle by Nicola Colton published by Little Tiger Press is a full colour early chapter book that very much has the feel of a picture book but in chapter format. The length of text on each spread means children will feel a good sense of accomplishment as they read through the book.

Both Floss and I felt a little kindred spirits with Bertha with her love of routine, organisation and not too much noise. We were very sad for her when we realised she had been so brutally betrayed by someone she trusted and could totally understand how she had been drawn within herself by what had happened.

Bertha is an invention master. When she realises how nice it is to speak to someone she comes up with her best invention yet. We loved how her robot invention ‘Blink’ helped her to find the courage to break free from the barriers she had put up.

We could not believe the cliffhanger we were left with at the end. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long before we get the next installment. However, we know that Bertha will be up to the challenge.

The majority of the text is lowercase with occasional uppercase for impact. The first two thirds of the book have good contrast to read the text but as the story heads into nighttime the contrast does reduce and it may be trickier for visually impaired readers to read independently. Text isn’t obstructed by illustrations which makes it easy to follow the story.

FREE RESOURCES: Little Tiger Press have produced some free resources to use with this book that you can find here.