Book excerpt: When Mulan's father was too ill to fight in the army, his daughter, Mulan, cut off her hair and put on men's clothes. She rode away from her village and went to the army, to become a great soldier. Ladybird Readers is a graded reading series of traditional tales, popular characters, modern stories, and non-fiction, written for young learners of English as a foreign or second language. Beautifully illustrated and carefully written, the series combines the best of Ladybird content with the structured language progression that will help children develop their reading, writing, speaking, listening and critical thinking skills. The eight levels of Readers and Activity Books follow the CEFR framework and include language activities that provide preparation for the Cambridge English: Young Learners (YLE) exams. Mulan, a Level 4 Activity Book, is A2 in the CEFR framework and supports YLE Flyers exams. The activities encourage children to practice longer sentences with up to three clauses, more complex past and future tense structures, modal verbs and a wider variety of conjunctions.