Finny the Fairy Fish

Collins Big Cat Independent, guided and whole-class reading

Offer more than 1,500 high-quality banded readers covering a wealth of genres and topics. Fiction titles include classics, Shakespeare retellings, graphic novels, modern and traditional tales, and poetry. Non-fiction titles include information texts, biographies and reports covering science, geography and history.

Finny the Fairy Fish

Finny is a rare fairy fish living on a Caribbean coral reef. He has never seen another fairy fish, until one day he sees himself in a conch shell mirror and realizes he is different from everyone else. Finny believes he is ugly and worthless, but his friends persuade him to leave the reef and journey to the deep sea where an elder dolphin explains to him that difference it to be celebrated.

Finny the Fairy Fish deals with themes of tolerance, belonging and celebration of diversity, using a Caribbean coral reef as the setting. The book introduces the types of creatures living on a reef and some of the threats facing the sea. It also encourages children to identify and talk about emotions.

Purple band 8 books offer developing readers literary language with some challenging vocabulary and more rounded and distinctive characters.