About Us
Flying Start Books was launched in August 2000 by sisters Rachel Walker and Sarah Ensor. Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Flying Start Books offers high-quality literacy resources to schools and distributors around the world.
Growing up with a literacy specialist mother meant that the sisters couldn’t avoid being infused with a love of books and a firm belief that literacy is the key to success in life.
This passion led them to build a publishing company dedicated to giving children a flying start in life by launching them into literacy. Combining forces with their mother, Pam Holden, the trio created Red Rocket Readers, the company’s flagship reading series.
It’s all right there in the name. We created Flying Start Books with a very clear intention: to ensure children get off to a flying start, with reading and with life!
Now, 26 years in, I can confidently say we are achieving that goal.Rachel Walker | Publishing Director, Flying Start Books
Every book we create has to pass this test:
Only when we’ve checked all three boxes will we proceed.
Sarah Ensor | Managing Director, Flying Start Books
Our Story
Our flagship product, Red Rocket Readers™, is a leveled literacy series of 600+ titles designed to teach English-speaking children to read and to support English language learning for speakers of other languages. The series is widely distributed across the United States, China, South Korea, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and New Zealand.
In recent years we have expanded our range in response to evolving needs in children’s literacy. Red Rocket™ Phonics addresses the growing understanding of how children with learning differences such as dyslexia learn to read, targeting the 4–7 age group. Our newest series, Cosmic Comics, responds to the post-Covid gap in literacy skills among children aged 7–9, offering exciting, highly decodable stories that engage reluctant readers. Both series reflect our enduring commitment to making literacy accessible to every child.
The little things…
It starts with the simplest of things: First, we’ve made sure every capital i has a top and a tail. We’ve put extra space between the words, between the lines
and, at the lower levels, between each letter. Take a look at what happens when you type the letters f and l side by side: For a child still finding their way with letters this can look like a capital A, so we’ve spread the letters out a little to make it easier.
Choice of typeface is also critical. In many modern fonts some letters have been streamlined and simplified 
to a point where they are indistinguishable from one another. As adults we’re well accustomed to reading the whole word picture but for a young child it’s not so easy. Try decoding the first three letters in this example, and then consider the page number!
Lower case q’s without flicks, curly g’s and a’s – they’re all confusions that children just don’t need at this early stage, so we’ve eliminated them.
I’ve worked in the publishing industry for 30 years, so I’ve heard all the excuses editors use for ignoring the author’s wishes: “The designer knows best about type and page layout”; “The artist won’t want to redraw that picture”; “There isn’t time to make those changes”; “It’s too expensive”; but for me, as the teacher and literacy expert, that’s just not good enough.Pam Holden | Navigator, Author and Series Consultant
I’m excited to carry forward the family legacy of now three generations of women with a passion for helping children around the world live wonderful lives full of story and discovery.
Grace Walker | Publisher, Flying Start Books