Today I am delighted to be kicking off the blog tour marking the publication of River Crest Rescue, the first chapter book for early readers in the Super Quest series. Paul Ian Cross is the author of the Royal Society’s award nominated Bodies, Brains and Bogies and has teamed up with two award-winning illustrators, Katie Kear and Cherie Zamazing in this fictional adventure embedded with facts, puzzles, activities and experiments. River Crest Rescue supports the STEM curriculum in KS1 and KS2 and makes learning fun for children.

When best friends Lilli, Leo and Bea are helping at Pickers’ Patch while Leo’s mum is unwell the children open an ancient chest they discover in a shed. They find an old board game, Questland and once they start to play their day takes an unexpected twist! Magically transported to the kingdom of Questland, the trio find themselves with superpowers. Transformed into the SuperQuesters – Lillicorn, Leo Zoom and Bea Bumble – they have been summoned to save the village of River Crest, which evil goblin gardener, Mortifer, wants to destroy. Mortifer is using bots that he has programmed to try to flood the village and to spread poisonous plants.

With the help of Clover the fairy and other magical creatures, the SuperQuesters must use their STEM skills, team work, problem solving and a little magic to solve puzzles, crack secret codes and outsmart Mortifer on their mission to save River Crest. Can they work out the answers in time to save their new friends and the wonderful place they call home?

River Crest Rescue covers a range of topics including information about beavers and dragonflies, examples of coding and engineering all wrapped up in a traditional story featuring a portal to another world. This premise frequently has appeal to children and youngsters of about 6+ will enjoy this initial taste of of magical fantasy incorporating friendship with a fairy and the ensuing battle of wits with an evil goblin.

The final pages include a glossary of terms such as ammonites, gravity, trellis and centrifugal force plus some science based activities for children to consolidate what they have learned through reading the book. This is an appealing package for the 6-8 age group and would be useful for supporting the curriculum in KS1 and lower KS2. To assist with this the publishers have produced a teachers’ resource pack which you may find useful and can access here.

Super Questers: Mission: River Crest Rescue is published on 1st May by Quest Friendz and I would like to thank Clare Morrison and Quest Friendz for providing my review copy and inviting me to participate in this blog tour. Please do follow the rest of the tour to find out more.