A Hot Day by Alison Hawes (illustrated by Maxine Lee, as credited on the cover) is a Cambridge Reading Adventures reader in the Pink A band for Play Group at Lahore Grammar School (LGS). The bright yellow cover shows a lion, a zebra, a porcupine, a monkey, a turtle and a lilac hippo at the edge of a pond, all of them looking wet and a little surprised. Available to order now for the 2027-28 session.
A Hot Day is a story, and a funny one. On a hot day, the animals jump into the cool water one after another. Then Hippo jumps in, and something happens. The teaching notes explain that the pictures carry a small joke that young children enjoy working out, and that is exactly why the book is so good for a first reader: the child wants to turn the page.
What happens in the book
According to the teaching notes, the story is told in one line of text per page, with just one word changing each time. Mouse jumps in the cool water, then Turtle, and the animals get bigger as the pages turn. A small word, ‘Splash’, appears on page 2 and gets bigger as the animals get bigger, which is a lovely detail for children to notice. The words that repeat on every page are ‘in’ and ‘the’, and the large gaps between words help a child match one spoken word to one printed word. When Hippo finally jumps in, the water splashes out, and the illustrations let the child work out what has happened.
What your child learns from it
The teaching notes list these learning outcomes. A child who reads this book can:
- turn the pages of a book properly;
- understand that print is read from left to right;
- match the spoken word to the printed word, one to one;
- find known high-frequency words (‘in’ and ‘the’) in a line of text.
How to read it with your child at home
Follow the guided lesson from the notes:
- Start by talking about being hot: what do you do to cool down? How might animals cool down?
- Read the title and ask why the book might be called ‘A Hot Day’. Look at the cover and notice how wet the animals are.
- Tell your child the story in a sentence: all the animals jump in the cool water because it is hot, but when Hippo jumps in, something happens.
- On each page, ask who jumps in and how your child knew. Point out the capital ‘M’ at the front of ‘Mouse’.
- Find the full stop at the end of the line and ask your child to point to the little mark.
Fun learning links beyond the book
The notes suggest a science activity: when Hippo jumps in, all the water splashes out. Use a bowl of water and a few bricks or stones to explore water displacement: how many bricks can go in before the water spills over? It is a simple, memorable first experiment, and children will remember the word ‘splash’ long after the book is back on the shelf.
About the Cambridge Reading Adventures Pink A band
Cambridge Reading Adventures is a graded reading series from Cambridge University Press. The Pink A band is the very first step: books for brand-new readers, with only a handful of words (roughly 30 to 60 per book according to the publisher), bright illustrations and a lot of repetition, so a child can recognise the same words again and again and feel like a reader from the first page. Every book carries teaching notes written by Sue Bodman and Glen Franklin, which show a teacher or parent exactly how to share the book.
Who, why, when and where
Whom: Play Group children (about three years old) and the adults who read with them. Why: to practise turning pages, left-to-right reading and one-to-one word matching with a story that makes a child laugh. When: at the start of Play Group, and any time at home. Where: at school, in the garden and on a hot day by a paddling pool. Lahore Grammar School campuses use almost the same books, but a few follow their own list for some subjects. Tell us your child’s campus on WhatsApp and we confirm the book before we dispatch.
Frequently asked questions
What is special about this book?
It tells a funny story in one line of text per page, and the illustrations carry a small joke about Hippo’s big splash.
Which words repeat?
‘In’ and ‘the’ appear on every page.
Is it right for a three-year-old?
Yes. It is a Pink A band book, the first level of Cambridge Reading Adventures.
We deliver A Hot Day to every city in Pakistan with Cash on Delivery, and you are welcome to collect it from our Lahore shop. If your school sent a book list, send it to us on WhatsApp and we will put the whole set together.
