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Julia Donaldson's Songbirds Collections
Bob Bug and Other Stories: Read with Oxford: Stage 1
Meet Bob in Bob Bug. Songbirds Phonics are beautifully illustrated stories written by Julia Donaldson. The rich, patterned language is decodable making them perfect for phonics teaching and practice. Level 1+ Songbirds Phonics books focus on matching one sound to one letter, for example o as in dog.
- GenresChildrens
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Julia Donaldson
1,272 books2,026 followersGrowing up
I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).
Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes.
I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.
Busking and books
Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.
The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children’s television. I became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window-cleaning and horrible smells. “We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin” was a typical request from the BBC.
I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs.
One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.
My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes.
I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.
Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers.
When I’m not writing I am often performing, at book festivals and in theatres. I really enjoy getting the children in the audience to help me act out the stories and sing the songs. When Malcolm can take time off from the hospital he and his guitar come too. and it feels as if we’ve come full circle - back to busking.
I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).
Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes.
I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.
Busking and books
Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.
The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children’s television. I became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window-cleaning and horrible smells. “We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin” was a typical request from the BBC.
I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs.
One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.
My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes.
I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.
Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers.
When I’m not writing I am often performing, at book festivals and in theatres. I really enjoy getting the children in the audience to help me act out the stories and sing the songs. When Malcolm can take time off from the hospital he and his guitar come too. and it feels as if we’ve come full circle - back to busking.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 23, 2018
I know this book like the back of my hand now. In fact, I know it better than the back of my hand, because I can't see the back of my hand when I'm holding this book. It's a bit of fun, has engaging illustrations, and helps kids enter the world of reading.
October 15, 2026
waiting for my starbucks. top tier read.
October 15, 2026
Waiting for my Starbucks. Great read.
March 23, 2026
There's two ways to review this "as a decodable reader" and "as a decodable reader by Julia Donaldson". Viewed simply as any other decodable reader it is slightly below average. And if you come with heightened expectations due to the author, you'll be disappointed.
So on to the first: the biggest flaw as a decodable reader is simply that it introduces too much, too fast, with no enough room for practice. The first story introduces 6 phonemes (a, t, p, m, o, c). The second story introduces two more (s, g), okay not too bad. Then the third story introduces 8 more phonics. Keep in mind that most phonics education aims for 2-3 new phonemes per week, so going from story 2 to story 3 is going to take 2-3 weeks of that gradual introduction of new phonemes.
And the actual story provides limited opportunity for practicing the new phonemes; each story only has so many words so there's not much space to give each phoneme room. In story 3 the new phoneme /l/ only gets used a single time ("lid"), same for /f/ ("fit"). It should be obvious that anyone needs more practice than that to learn a new concept, regardless of what we're talking about learning.
Most decodable series provide way, way more practice than this. One series my kids use introduces 8 phonemes (s, a, t, p, i, m, d) and then provides 20 different stories for them to practice decoding. Then it introduces 9 more and gives you another 20 stories. 40 stories versus 2.
Additional smaller complaints: my kids hated story 5 ("Zak and the Vet") which is about a dog getting hit by a car, getting a severe cut, and bleeding all over the place. They covered their eyes and said it was too scary to read. What a strange choice!?
The tricky/heart words had one or two head scratchers. In "Mum Bug's Bag" they introduce the word "hole", which is not a high-frequency word (in appears around #900 in frequency lists). In the context of the story (a hole in a bag) they could have just used "rip", which is fully decodable. At the point only a small number of tricky/heart words have been introduced -- I, of, better, he, the, to, will, her, of -- so it wasn't like there was a need to start introducing less common ones.
So just on the basic level of "is this a good decodable reader" my answer is: ehhh, not really, not "great" and probably not even "good". It isn't bad, I think it is just, at best, supplementary to other more comprehensive decodable readers. That are all going to do this but probably better? So just stick with them?
I imagine a lot of parents are drawn to this by Donaldson's name. Let's be honest, the "story" of other decodable readers can be pretty mind-numbing. But this isn't really any better, at least not in this first volume. I don't think that's really a fault of Donaldson, so much as showing the limits of what can done when you're restricted to a handful of phonemes in passages that are just a few dozen words. If even an acclaimed author like Donaldson struggles to come up with something compelling then perhaps we need to cut some slack for all the other authors of decodable passages.
So on to the first: the biggest flaw as a decodable reader is simply that it introduces too much, too fast, with no enough room for practice. The first story introduces 6 phonemes (a, t, p, m, o, c). The second story introduces two more (s, g), okay not too bad. Then the third story introduces 8 more phonics. Keep in mind that most phonics education aims for 2-3 new phonemes per week, so going from story 2 to story 3 is going to take 2-3 weeks of that gradual introduction of new phonemes.
And the actual story provides limited opportunity for practicing the new phonemes; each story only has so many words so there's not much space to give each phoneme room. In story 3 the new phoneme /l/ only gets used a single time ("lid"), same for /f/ ("fit"). It should be obvious that anyone needs more practice than that to learn a new concept, regardless of what we're talking about learning.
Most decodable series provide way, way more practice than this. One series my kids use introduces 8 phonemes (s, a, t, p, i, m, d) and then provides 20 different stories for them to practice decoding. Then it introduces 9 more and gives you another 20 stories. 40 stories versus 2.
Additional smaller complaints: my kids hated story 5 ("Zak and the Vet") which is about a dog getting hit by a car, getting a severe cut, and bleeding all over the place. They covered their eyes and said it was too scary to read. What a strange choice!?
The tricky/heart words had one or two head scratchers. In "Mum Bug's Bag" they introduce the word "hole", which is not a high-frequency word (in appears around #900 in frequency lists). In the context of the story (a hole in a bag) they could have just used "rip", which is fully decodable. At the point only a small number of tricky/heart words have been introduced -- I, of, better, he, the, to, will, her, of -- so it wasn't like there was a need to start introducing less common ones.
So just on the basic level of "is this a good decodable reader" my answer is: ehhh, not really, not "great" and probably not even "good". It isn't bad, I think it is just, at best, supplementary to other more comprehensive decodable readers. That are all going to do this but probably better? So just stick with them?
I imagine a lot of parents are drawn to this by Donaldson's name. Let's be honest, the "story" of other decodable readers can be pretty mind-numbing. But this isn't really any better, at least not in this first volume. I don't think that's really a fault of Donaldson, so much as showing the limits of what can done when you're restricted to a handful of phonemes in passages that are just a few dozen words. If even an acclaimed author like Donaldson struggles to come up with something compelling then perhaps we need to cut some slack for all the other authors of decodable passages.
December 14, 2019
If you expect a good JD, then don't buy this book. It's an average one-minute reader, too simple even to learn from.
September 21, 2020
Read at school with children beginning to read level 1.
May 4, 2021
Maddie now understands what a rug and a cot are.
November 2, 2023
Likte ikke dette universet så godt. Men ser de kan funke på en veiledet lesestasjon, der repetert lesing er i fokus. De har en infoside der de har dtatt ut lyder, ord og fraser som kan bygges ut, så lett for en lærer å bruke. Men jeg er mer glad i enkeltstående bøker og mer rim og rytme når en skal lære nytt språk.
May 14, 2012
Bobs mum is big. His Dad is Fit.
Bob thinks there is a rat in his bedroom but there isn't. It's just his cup.
Bob thinks there is a rat in his bedroom but there isn't. It's just his cup.
September 8, 2019
My most favourite book, I love it sooo much!
Read
April 18, 2018;;;
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews