[attach id=474628 size="medium"][/attach]
Is your child just getting started with independent reading in Maltese? Then what you’re probably looking for, and struggling to find enough of, are books with very basic text, a maximum of one line per page, and lots of repetition and easy-to-read words.
Merlin Publishers recently launched X’Qed Tara?, an early-reading book with words and sentence structures that have been carefully formulated to aid reading and confidence. Many children struggle to enjoy their first readings in Maltese and X’Qed Tara? will go a long way towards dispelling their fear of the language.
The illustrations by Italian artist Claudio Cerri are stunningly produced to make this story a joy for young eyes. Merlin have also paid their trademark attention to detail in such things as choice of paper, which is sturdy enough to withstand curious hands.
In X’Qed Tara? we find, in simple vocabulary, a number of children all looking up in the sky at something in amazement. Each of them drops whatever he or she was doing – playing, studying, watching TV – and stares up. The big question of course is, what are they looking at?
The answer is a surprising appreciation of nature, with a couple of spreads at the end of the book explaining what the phenomenon they’re looking at is all about.
X’Qed Tara? is available from all bookshops and online.
www.merlinpublishers.com