Reading Champion: The Monkey's Heart

In this Indian traditional tale, Crocodile's wife longs to eat the heart of his friend, Monkey. But Monkey plays a trick of her own to get away ...

This story is part of Reading Champion, a series carefully linked to book bands to encourage independent reading skills, developed with Dr Sue Bodman and Glen Franklin of UCL Institute of Education (IOE)

Reading Champion offers independent reading books for children to practise and reinforce their developing reading skills.

Fantastic stories are accompanied by engaging artwork and a reading activity. Each book has been carefully graded so that it can be matched to a child's reading ability, encouraging reading for pleasure.

Penny Dolan is a children's writer and storyteller living in North Yorkshire. She is a popular speaker with both infant and junior children, and has visited many School Book Weeks and literacy events across the UK, with her enjoyable 'Author Talks' and lively story-telling sessions. She has also spoken and performed in libraries, bookshops, museums, art galleries, historic sites and outdoor locations, and has appeared on the children's programme of several literature festivals. She has a wide interest in children's books and has been Chair of the Federation of Children's Book Groups. Penny has a wide experience of schools. She was a primary advisory teacher for English and Drama but has been a freelance language arts worker for several years. She has also taught on residential writing courses for children, tutored both storytelling and writing courses for adults, and spoken at conferences. Penny has a degree in Education, specialising in Language and Literacy and an Advanced Diploma in Educational Drama. As well as working on her writing, Penny enjoys drawing, painting, reading, chatting and daydreaming. Her favourite colour is yellow. Her favourite food is strawberries-and-cream, and she is probably the world's slowest swimmer. She has three untidy desks, two grown-up children and one rather bad cat. Lisa Williams decided to be an illustrator while she was still in primary school. She has been illustrating children's books, magazines and educational material for over 25 years. She has worked with a large number of publishers and also directly with many authors - she loves to create something special and memorable for them by including small personal details in the images that the reader might not be aware of! Lisa often adapts her style to suit the requirements of the project, which has given her the opportunity to develop a wide array of illustration styles.