CHILDREN’S BOOKS
THE BUBBLE BOY by Stewart Foster (Simon & Schuster £6.99)
ElEvEn-year- old Joe suffers from a potentially fatal allergic condition that means he has spent almost his entire life living inside a sterile hospital room, subjected to endless treatment by his dedicated team of doctors and nurses.
His devoted sister is one of his only visitors and his best friend is Henry, a boy in America with a similar illness, with whom he Skypes about their shared passion for superheroes.
Then Joe gets a new nurse, Amir, who believes in aliens and whose extraordinary imagination will provide Joe with a life-changing opportunity — but one that carries an extraordinary risk.
The first part of the book focuses on Joe’s routines and relationships, but gradually, the tension builds. The subsequent drama is heartbreaking in its simple affirmation of the importance of embracing what makes life worth living. Age 10+
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN by David Walliams, illustrated by Tony Ross (HarperCollins £14.99)
BILLED as a collection of ten cautionary tales, this really is Walliams at his most indulgently gross and silly — the perfect combination for thousands of his loyal fans.
Here we have Windy Mindy, who farts so much she launches into outer space, Peter Picker, who ends up trapped inside his own giant bogey, and Sofia Sofa, a greedy couch potato who meets a very uncomfortable fate.
it’s packed full of pongs and grime, lists and puns — easy ways to make young children laugh — but in concentrating on just the grotesque and disgusting, Walliams sacrifices the real wit and originality that characterised his earliest books.
But it is stunningly illustrated by Ross who captures the energy and chaos of the stories. Age 6+
THE MONSTROUS CHILD by Francesca Simon (Faber £9.99)
FRANCESCA (Horrid Henry) Simon’s great strength lies in capturing the voice of her leading characters — and never more so than in this graphic account of teenager Hel, doomed to be Queen of the norse Underworld by her enraged father, the god loki. Hel is born deformed — her top half is beautiful goddess, her lower half a pair of corpse-like, foul-smelling legs.
Aged 14, she is cast into the Underworld where, like any modern adolescent, she rails and rants against her fate, her dysfunctional family and her cruel disability, wreaking terrible revenge on the shady, decaying souls sent to her kingdom.
There’s a touching unrequited love story, offset by a richly mined vein of black humour, and violent battles to save or destroy the future world.
The intensity of the anger will strike a chord with hormonal readers, who will seem almost saintly in comparison. Age 11+