The Diary of Dennis the Menace: The Great Escape by Steven Butler

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search


The Diary of Dennis the Menace: The Great Escape by Steven Butler

0141355867.jpg
Buy The Diary of Dennis the Menace: The Great Escape by Steven Butler at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Category: Confident Readers
Rating: 4/5
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Reviewed by John Lloyd
Summary: Filled with hyperbole and the highly obvious, this is still fun for the target audience.
Buy? Yes Borrow? Yes
Pages: 176 Date: February 2016
Publisher: Puffin
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9780141355863

Share on: Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn



Poor Dennis the Menace. He thinks he's sorted his life out, and got rid of the Bum-Face wimp he loves to hate so much. His school, the Bash Street, is giving the winner of an exam they are holding the chance to upgrade to the snotty Posh Street equivalent, which is a nightmare full of books (and worse) and is actually a boarding school – yes, one of those places for people who seriously want to live in a school. Clearly the exam will only have one winner – said wimp, Walter the Softy. But like I say, Dennis only thinks he has his life sorted – sometimes it can come round to bite him on the bum, and sort him out…

You can see what is going to happen, even without the back cover blurb giving the game away, and leaving about the last ten pages as a surprise. And pages are quite scarce in this volume – there never have been many, but there seem even more pages here with very little on – Dennis bracing us for his shocking news in the largest of handwritten fonts, Dennis cartooning his life in front of us to show how kinetic, violent and messy it is, Dennis signing off as an ex-Menace…

Still, these books have never been the sort to fetch up in Posh Street School library. They are, as I say, incredibly scrappy in look, and designed to clearly be a potential product of Dennis's menacing lessons, and ripe for the young Dennis wannabes, of either gender. That way they both fit the franchise and have nothing in them to possibly stop the audience relating to them fully. I enjoy the series greatly, even at very much the wrong age for them. I think the audience for this example will relate to it once more, but I do think a few will see the wool being pulled over their eyes a little – the wool belonging to a threadbare jumper, that while in the traditional red and black stripes does have a little less going for it in the way of surprise, novelty and drama than usual.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

We first met the series here.

Please share on: Facebook Facebook, Follow us on Twitter Twitter and Follow us on Instagram Instagram

Buy The Diary of Dennis the Menace: The Great Escape by Steven Butler at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy The Diary of Dennis the Menace: The Great Escape by Steven Butler at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
Buy The Diary of Dennis the Menace: The Great Escape by Steven Butler at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy The Diary of Dennis the Menace: The Great Escape by Steven Butler at Amazon.com.

Comments

Like to comment on this review?

Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.