Magic Manly Books Review

Little Miss and I recently reviewed books from the Magic Manly book series. Written by Sarah Lou and illustrated by Jarrod Blandthorn, the books are locally written, illustrated and printed.

The books are a series of fun stories for young kids with important life lessons about friendship, self-esteem, respect and acceptance and the best thing of all - they are set in beautiful Manly, a favourite beach of ours!

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Writer Sarah Lou has always been passionate about animals and beautiful Manly. Through friendly Australian characters, colourful drawings and fun stories, she hopes to inspire children to be kind to animals, marine life and to each other. Sarah's three books so far are Davy's Big Adventure, The Magical Secret Spot and Elvis Gets New Shoes.

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The first book - Davy's Big Adventure introduces Davy the bottlenose dolphin. After leaving his dolphin pod to create his own, Davy explores the seas and meets two new friends Leroy the upside down owl and Elvis the little penguin. This story touched on courage, resilience and being kind to others. 

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The second book - Magical Secret Spot continues on with the story and explores how Davy, Leroy and Elvis find a magical spot to live called Magic Manly and how they meet new friend Jonesy the crow, Selwyn the seagull and new friends Bruce, Joe and Nicole from the Ocean Dreaming cruise. This story touched on being open to meeting new friends, being polite and respecting one another.

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The third book - Elvis Gets New Shoes sees Davy and his friends enjoying Magic Manly and its surroundings. After a meeting with new friend Barry the bull shark, Elvis looses his shoes so asks his friends from the Ocean Dreaming cruise to give him a helping hand to find a new pair. This story touched on jealousy, curiosity and true friendships.

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The story of Elvis' shoes is actually based on a true story. Elvis was a real penguin who lived in Christchurch New Zealand, Sarah Lou (the author)'s hometown. This little penguin inspired Sarah to write Magic Manly. 

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We love the book format, it has large text which is great for kids who are learning to read and for little ones to see some familiar letters and words and its cute and colourful illustrations are great to keep children interested while you read them a story.

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Little Miss loved the Magic Manly books, she liked the large illustrations and listening to the cute stories. She did think the names of the animals were very funny and her favourite character was Elvis the penguin as he is very cute. We love the Magic Manly books and look forward to reading some new adventures very soon! 

For more information or to buy any of the Magic Manly books, head to their website. Or if you are visiting Manly, pop in at Humphrey's Bookshop located at The Corso in Manly.

Checkout more book reviews here.

This review is not sponsored in any way however a copy of this book series was provided to us for review. As always, our opinions and comments are our own and we only endorse businesses or products we believe in.