Yes, he’s got kids reading – but he could cut back the toilet humour

GLANCE around any hotel pool or beach this summer and you’ll probably spot a child hunched over a book by David Walliams.

Some parents may find the toilet humour distasteful, but there’s no doubt that the author’s ability to prise youngsters away from video games and iPads deserves praise.

Walliams now ranks alongside JK Rowling in guaranteeing that anything he writes will immediately sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Celebrities are queuing up to write children’s books (David Baddiel, Julian Clary, Clare Balding, Adrian Edmondson, Madonna and Keith Richards to name a few). But Walliams is distinctly different, with a remarkable ability to combine slapstick and scatalogical humour with a deep empathy for the outsider. And he isn’t afraid to confront issues like illness or death. In his first novel, 2008’s The Boy In The Dress, a motherless young boy with a macho dad and brother wears a frock to school as he resists pressure to conform.

In bestsellers Gangsta Granny and Grandpa’s Great Escape, the message is that the older generation have life stories to tell, too. However, author Anthony Horowitz has accused Walliams of patronising his young audience, and says his books lack ambition.

Certainly, characters in more recent books have become one-paced caricatures and pages can be littered with rude words, while the focus on jokes about breaking wind and bogeys can dominate the plot.

Not that any of this has affected Walliams’ popularity. Since 2008, sales have grown by up to 30 per cent a year. So his kind of puerile humour still seems popular with his agerange, and parents love to hear children laugh out loud while reading. It’s just a shame that jokes about snot now seem to squeeze out the more thoughtful and moving themes that underpinned earlier books.