Arif Goes Shopping by Charlotte al-Qadi (illustrated by Rupert Van Wyk, 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 cover is a busy, colourful supermarket: a little boy in a green kameez shalwar reaching for an apple, his mother in a blue hijab pushing a trolley, and shelves of apples, bananas, carrots and greens. Available to order now for the 2027-28 session.
For many children in Pakistan this is a scene from real life, which is one reason the book works so well. It is a familiar family outing, written in a simple, repeated sentence structure, and the characters (Mum and Arif) look like families children know.
What happens in the book
The teaching notes describe it as an engaging tale of what happens when Mum and Arif go shopping. The text tells us what Mum puts in the trolley, one item per page, but the real story is about Arif, as the title says. He enthusiastically helps Mum choose and put the items in the trolley, and then shopping turns out to be hard work: soon a very tired Arif is placed in the trolley himself. The foods named include apples, oranges, milk, juice, rice and pizza, and the words that repeat are Mum, in, the and puts. There are two lines of text on each page.
What your child learns from it
The teaching notes list these learning outcomes. A child who reads this book can:
- understand that print carries meaning and is read from left to right and from top to bottom;
- use the first letter of a word to check what the picture shows (for example, the ‘o’ of ‘oranges’);
- track two lines of simple repeated text, including the return sweep from line one to line two.
How to read it with your child at home
The guided lesson in the notes can be copied step by step:
- Read the title together and say: Mum and Arif go shopping, Mum puts each item in the trolley, let us see if Arif is good at helping.
- On the first page, point to each word as you read ‘Mum puts apples in the trolley’, slowly enough for your child to match.
- On the next page, ask what Mum puts in now. If your child says oranges, ask how to check, and look at the first letter of the word together.
- Encourage your child to find the word they need by tracking along the line with a finger.
Fun learning links beyond the book
For maths, the notes suggest asking how much each item cost, working out the price of two ingredients together, or how much change Arif could expect; local currency (rupees) makes the best context. For geography and food, ask what you eat and whether you buy the same staple foods as Mum and Arif; this can lead to a simple block graph of the foods the children like best. A trip to your local shop with your child, naming each item before it goes into the basket, is the best activity of all.
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 build vocabulary for everyday foods and the habit of tracking two lines of text. When: at the start of Play Group, and on any shopping day. Where: at school, in the car on the way to the shop, and in the shop itself. 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
Who is Arif?
The little boy in the story, who helps his Mum with the shopping and gets very tired.
Which food words does it teach?
Apples, oranges, milk, juice, rice and pizza, according to the teaching notes.
How many lines of text are on a page?
Two, which helps children practise the return sweep.
Buy Arif Goes Shopping from us online and pay when it reaches your door (Cash on Delivery, all over Pakistan). We also ship prepaid orders to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.
