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quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Hi guys!
I bet every one of you knows what it’s like to have an embarrassing parent – right? But let me tell you, my friend, NOBODY has a dad like mine. He takes embarrassing to a whole new level. If embarrassing was an Olympic sport, my dad would have, like, a gazillion gold medals.
He thinks he’s some kind of survival guru. And he’s make me and my sister live through the agony of his back-to-basics life with him. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s an INTERNET SENSATION!
People all over the world are waiting for the next hilarious video. And thanks to my clever secret filming, I’ll soon have enough money to convince Mum to come home …
When 12-year-old Nelson Lambsley comes home from school to find that his mum has left his dad’s reaction is to quit his job as an estate agent and move Nelson and his 5-year-old sister Mary to Norfolk, where he’s bought a run down house with an outside toilet in the middle of nowhere. His dad wants to take them all back to nature – just like his hero Panther Blimmington-Weltby does on his survivalist TV shows and in his books – which is why he’s sold the TV, the computers and all of Nelson’s computer games and banned the internet from their house!
When Nelson comes into possession of a laptop and webcam, he records his dad doing his back-to-nature activities and finds himself with a viral hit on his hands. As the number of subscribers to his YouTube channel rises, Nelson finds that he’s making money from advertising revenue and he thinks that if he earns enough, then maybe it’ll convince his mum to come home – assuming that he can find out where she went first …
Ben Davis’s comic novel for children aged 9+ (illustrated by Mike Lowery) is an entertaining book with some laugh-out-loud moments but I wasn’t completely comfortable with the fact that Nelson is basically filming his dad’s emotional breakdown. Nelson’s a resourceful main character and I enjoyed his relationship with Mary (whose devotion to Gertrude the chicken is very sweet) and his developing friendship with Kirsty and Ash who go from being forced to hang out with him to aiding and abetting his schemes. I wish that there’d been more of his relationship with his dad before his mum left because the focus on his dad’s hatred of technology without any consideration for the effect on his children makes him unsympathetic (although kindly neighbour Primrose does show some empathy for his behaviour). Similarly, I also wished that Nelson’s mother had more page time because I couldn’t believe in her ability to walk away without making any attempt to keep in touch. The supporting characters are broadly sketched and although I enjoyed the Elvis fan teacher, I wished that the laughs at the expense of the harbour master and his wife hadn’t made Tourette’s and narcolepsy the punch line to jokes. That said, there are some genuinely funny moments and there was enough here to make me want to check out Davis’s other comic novels for kids.
The Verdict:
Ben Davis’s comic novel for children aged 9+ (illustrated by Mike Lowery) is an entertaining book with some laugh-out-loud moments but I wasn’t completely comfortable with the fact that Nelson is basically filming his dad’s emotional breakdown. Nelson’s a resourceful main character and I enjoyed his relationship with Mary (whose devotion to Gertrude the chicken is very sweet) and his developing friendship with Kirsty and Ash who go from being forced to hang out with him to aiding and abetting his schemes. I wish that there’d been more of his relationship with his dad before his mum left because the focus on his dad’s hatred of technology without any consideration for the effect on his children makes him unsympathetic (although kindly neighbour Primrose does show some empathy for his behaviour). Similarly, I also wished that Nelson’s mother had more page time because I couldn’t believe in her ability to walk away without making any attempt to keep in touch. The supporting characters are broadly sketched and although I enjoyed the Elvis fan teacher, I wished that the laughs at the expense of the harbour master and his wife hadn’t made Tourette’s and narcolepsy the punch line to jokes. That said, there are some genuinely funny moments and there was enough here to make me want to check out Davis’s other comic novels for kids.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
Hi guys!
I bet every one of you knows what it’s like to have an embarrassing parent – right? But let me tell you, my friend, NOBODY has a dad like mine. He takes embarrassing to a whole new level. If embarrassing was an Olympic sport, my dad would have, like, a gazillion gold medals.
He thinks he’s some kind of survival guru. And he’s make me and my sister live through the agony of his back-to-basics life with him. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s an INTERNET SENSATION!
People all over the world are waiting for the next hilarious video. And thanks to my clever secret filming, I’ll soon have enough money to convince Mum to come home …
When 12-year-old Nelson Lambsley comes home from school to find that his mum has left his dad’s reaction is to quit his job as an estate agent and move Nelson and his 5-year-old sister Mary to Norfolk, where he’s bought a run down house with an outside toilet in the middle of nowhere. His dad wants to take them all back to nature – just like his hero Panther Blimmington-Weltby does on his survivalist TV shows and in his books – which is why he’s sold the TV, the computers and all of Nelson’s computer games and banned the internet from their house!
When Nelson comes into possession of a laptop and webcam, he records his dad doing his back-to-nature activities and finds himself with a viral hit on his hands. As the number of subscribers to his YouTube channel rises, Nelson finds that he’s making money from advertising revenue and he thinks that if he earns enough, then maybe it’ll convince his mum to come home – assuming that he can find out where she went first …
Ben Davis’s comic novel for children aged 9+ (illustrated by Mike Lowery) is an entertaining book with some laugh-out-loud moments but I wasn’t completely comfortable with the fact that Nelson is basically filming his dad’s emotional breakdown. Nelson’s a resourceful main character and I enjoyed his relationship with Mary (whose devotion to Gertrude the chicken is very sweet) and his developing friendship with Kirsty and Ash who go from being forced to hang out with him to aiding and abetting his schemes. I wish that there’d been more of his relationship with his dad before his mum left because the focus on his dad’s hatred of technology without any consideration for the effect on his children makes him unsympathetic (although kindly neighbour Primrose does show some empathy for his behaviour). Similarly, I also wished that Nelson’s mother had more page time because I couldn’t believe in her ability to walk away without making any attempt to keep in touch. The supporting characters are broadly sketched and although I enjoyed the Elvis fan teacher, I wished that the laughs at the expense of the harbour master and his wife hadn’t made Tourette’s and narcolepsy the punch line to jokes. That said, there are some genuinely funny moments and there was enough here to make me want to check out Davis’s other comic novels for kids.
The Verdict:
Ben Davis’s comic novel for children aged 9+ (illustrated by Mike Lowery) is an entertaining book with some laugh-out-loud moments but I wasn’t completely comfortable with the fact that Nelson is basically filming his dad’s emotional breakdown. Nelson’s a resourceful main character and I enjoyed his relationship with Mary (whose devotion to Gertrude the chicken is very sweet) and his developing friendship with Kirsty and Ash who go from being forced to hang out with him to aiding and abetting his schemes. I wish that there’d been more of his relationship with his dad before his mum left because the focus on his dad’s hatred of technology without any consideration for the effect on his children makes him unsympathetic (although kindly neighbour Primrose does show some empathy for his behaviour). Similarly, I also wished that Nelson’s mother had more page time because I couldn’t believe in her ability to walk away without making any attempt to keep in touch. The supporting characters are broadly sketched and although I enjoyed the Elvis fan teacher, I wished that the laughs at the expense of the harbour master and his wife hadn’t made Tourette’s and narcolepsy the punch line to jokes. That said, there are some genuinely funny moments and there was enough here to make me want to check out Davis’s other comic novels for kids.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
