By Andy Griffiths and Illustrated by Terry Denton ( Macmillan Children’s Books)
Guest reviewed by Joe (8)
The best thing about this book is it’s very funny. Andy and Terry live in a very cool treehouse with 13 floors and on each one is something amazing, like a see-through swimming pool, a shark pit, a bowling alley, a lemonade fountain and a man-eating shark tank. In their underground laboratory they make cool experiments. They have the best life. They watch TV and write and draw books. In this book they have to write a book but things keep happening and they can’t. Then at the end they realise they have got a book full of the story of what happened that day, like a sea monkey which grew into a mermaid and then a sea monster! I like all the drawings on every page. I want to read the next one!
Parents note: This is a great book for young boys (or girls) who are reluctant to read – it’s full of rough and tumble humour (in one scene the boys have a drawing competition and end up physically fighting – this felt like a very typical scene in any house around the world). They also have adventures and if you don’t like your children to read about scary sea monsters who want to eat little boys then don’t read this. (It’s not really scary but the illustrations make quite an impact on younger kids.) These cartoon-style illustrations are what keep the young reader’s attention and the funny text, which perfectly captures a young boy’s split second attention span between watching TV, eating yummy snacks and making crazy inventions. It’s an imaginative and fantastical tale.
Griffiths is an Australian comedian turned bestselling children’s book author of a series of books called the Bad books and the Just! books. He has even been translated into French. This fact impresses my children. He has also written a Bum series and yes, he has written a book called The Day My Bum Went Psycho. This could have put me off. In fact it does slightly. But as Joe says, the Treehouse series “is so funny I could read it again.” Can’t argue with that.
0 Comments