Reading Adventures

Decodable Chapter Books to Engage All Readers

Take your students on a Reading Adventure
with Big Mess Jess and Jet Pack Jack

NOW IN STOCK!

Features of the Reading Adventures Books

Eight easy to read, graphic novel style decodable chapter books to build reading confidence. These books are light on text and big on humour and engaging characters and stories. Reading Adventures consists of two, parallel, four-book series (the Big Mess Jess series and the Jet Pack Jack series).

Phonics Coverage

The two series progress through an identical Scope and Sequence (which also aligns with our Sunshine Phonics decodables series).

To read Book 1 in either series, students only need to know the simple alphabetic code: consonants and short vowel sounds.
Book 2 adds consonant digraphs and vowel digraphs & trigraphs.
Book 3 adds more vowel digraphs and trigraphs and the schwa sound.
Book 4 adds words with adjacent consonants.

Meet the Author

The Reading Adventures books are written by Sally Sutton, an award-winning New Zealand author of picture books and junior fiction series. You can read about Sally here.

Meet Big Mess Jess

Big Mess Jess is an accidental superhero: a big, shaggy, clumsy dog with an insatiable appetite who will stop at nothing to sniff out her favourite food: buns. She leaves a trail of chaos and mess wherever she goes and causes endless trouble for her owner Pip, but somehow, she always manages to perform heroic deeds along the way, earning her grateful pats, hugs… and even buns.

Big Mess Jess and Bad Bob (Book 1)

Big Mess Jess and the zooming jet (Book 2)

Meet Jet Pack Jack

Jet Pack Jack’s jet pack allows him to fly anywhere – but he is not an expert flyer. In fact, he’s terrible. He has a pet rat, Rex, who sits on his shoulder and eggs him on. Despite his lack of confidence and dodgy aerial skills, Jet Pack Jack always manages to save the day… just!

Jet Pack Jack and the burping goats on Mars (Book 3)

Jet Pack Jack and the problem at the Big Top (Book 4)

Reading Adventures Single Pack 1 x 8 titles
$76.00 Add to cart
Reading Adventures Multipack 5 x 8 titles
$304.00 Add to cart

Books include activities and teacher notes

The inside front cover of each book displays the sounds needed to read the book, plus some practice words to blend, and some tricky words to read. At the end of each book there are four pages of student activities (eg retelling the story, decodable questions and sentences to read), plus four pages of teacher notes, including comprehension questions, vocab and oral, writing and spelling activities.

Inside front cover followed by examples of activities and teacher notes.

You can watch Sally in conversation about writing the Reading Adventures books here:

Hover over the cover to read the synopsis of each adventure

Big Mess Jess and Bad Bob

Jess and Pip see a robber, Bad Bob, stealing things in their local restaurant, The Big Yum. They pursue and catch Bad Bob, earning the praise and gratitude of the chef.

Big Mess Jess and the zooming jet

Jess follows Pip and her family to the airport. As Jess attempts to track down some buns, she finds herself on the runway. There, she saves a jet from crashing into a luggage trolley.

Big Mess Jess and Fang, the missing kitten

At the vet’s, Jess sees a kitten escape the busy waiting room. When Jess wakes up from her operation, she creates chaos when she helps the other animals escape from their cages. She then sets out on a successful mission to find the missing kitten.

Big Mess Jess and the bad luck duck

During a picnic in the park, Pip feeds mouldy buns to a lucky duck, much to Jess’s annoyance who launches herself into the duckpond to get them back. The duck flaps off and causes Gran’s wheelchair to roll into the duckpond. Luckily, Jess is in the right spot to rescue Gran.

Jet Pack Jack and Dan, the bus man

When Dan the bus driver falls ill, his bus careers off down the road with kids on board. Jack and Rex zoom after it and, despite crashing through a campsite and a duckpond, they manage to save the bus and the kids - and get Dan to a hospital.

Jet Pack Jack and the fox’s teeth

Jack and Rex visit the zoo, where Rex is very proud of how similar he is to the zoo animals. Wet weather and Rex’s boasting put Jack in a bad mood. The rain also gets into the jet pack, making it smoke and rumble. When a small girl falls into the fox’s enclosure, Jack and Rex put aside their differences and come up with a plan to save the girl.

Jet Pack Jack and the burping goats on Mars

When Jack presses a big, red button on his jet pack, he and Rex go zooming up to Mars. There, they meet a goat farmer whose burping goats have all escaped their pen. Jack and Rex think of lots of crazy ways to help the farmer catch the goats, and they finally succeed by a stroke of luck.

Jet Pack Jack and the problem at the Big Top

Jack and Rex are at the circus. A stormy wind blows in and causes havoc for performers, especially Gail Glitter, high up on her trapeze. Jack tries to help but his dodgy flying skills do not impress the crowd. Jack perseveres, saves Gail, and wins over the crowd.