I've made it a mission of mine to read as many traditional tales re-written by modern authors as I can (suggestions appreciated!), as I'm honestly not a big fan of them...

I have yet to read much else of Phillip Pullman, but of course have heard a lot of good about his work.

Although Aladdin isn't one of my personal favourites, I did enjoy this retelling. It felt closer to the original story than most, with a good amount of modern pantomime and humour.

It had a good balance vocabulary wise: Some of the language may be a little challenging or outdated for children and involve some research/scaffolding/questioning, whilst others were clearly described in a more modern way to help children see the links to the real-world (history, geography etc).