View source for Stinkbomb and Ketchup Face-and the Great Kerfuffle Christmas Kidnap by John Dougherty and David Tazzyman


{{infobox
|title=Stinkbomb and Ketchup Face-and the Great Kerfuffle Christmas Kidnap
|author=John Dougherty and David Tazzyman
|reviewer= Tony Taylor
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= This book will get children reading.  Brilliantly silly, great characters and laugh out loud all the way through.  David Tazzyman’s illustrations make this the perfect package. 
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=192
|publisher=OUP Oxford
|date=October 2016
|isbn=978-0192747785
|website= http://www.visitingauthor.com/
|video=
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192747789</amazonuk>
}}
 
It's Christmas Eve and Father Christmas is missing.  Brother and sister Stinkbomb and Ketchup Face wake up in the middle of the night expecting to find a huge pile of presents.  Instead they find a huge pile of nothing.  They know something must be wrong because they have been good all year long (honestly).  The only possible answer is that Father Christmas is in trouble so they have to save him and save Christmas for everyone on the island of Great Kerfuffle. 

This book will pull children away from the idea that reading is boring like a magnet.  Its engagement is powerful in many ways.  Firstly, the story is silly, but silly in a great way.  The characters and their relationships with each other are laugh out loud funny and their reactions to situations are brilliant - full of perfect comic timing. These characters include talking shopping trollies, escapee badgers, King Toothbrush Weasel and a horsey called Starlight who’s neither a horsey or called Starlight!

Each page is visually different to the one before: words pop out in bold, capital letters swoop across the page and the use of altered fonts make this book stand-out for children.  Then let’s talk about the illustrations.  Illustrated by David Tazzlyman (illustrator of the Mr Gum series) the quick hand-drawn style perfectly matches the mad-cap style of the story, further adding to the silly nature of the whole package.

What is most brilliant about this book is that it is not all slap-stick and nutty adventures.  The quality of the writing is first-rate too.  John Dougherty’s use of descriptive language is fantastic.  The story opens with a description of the wintry scene: ‘''It was Christmas Eve on the little island of Great Kerfuffle.  The stars shone pin-bright, each one a miniature jewel on the deep blue velvet cloth of the night sky.  A crisp new coat of frost glistened on the ground.  Flakes of snow were beginning to fall through the wintry air, glittering in the moonlight like the dandruff of angels.’’ This style writing continues throughout and is balanced by the wonderfully silly nature of the story. 

As I said at the start, this book will completely alter some children’s ideas of reading.  It breaks normal convention of books and children are always entertained when the norm is altered.  Between chapters 7 and 8 we are hurtled to chapter 4 ½ to find out what had been happening to other characters within the story. This also happens later on and we grow to expect the unexpected. 

As a primary school teacher, I can see the strong appeal of the Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face series of books.  It's written in a visually comparable way to The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The World of Norm, however its language is much more appropriate to the 7-11 age group.  This afternoon I ordered the entire series of these books for my school.  We are constantly working, at school, to promote a love of reading, which can be difficult in this world of computer games and instant everything, especially for boys.  However, I believe I have found a true gem of a book and series of books to support this notion of a love of reading.  My seven-year old son has loved every chapter, definitely a book where he calls for another chapter every night.  It is silly, laugh out loud funny and also has excellent descriptive language and vocabulary choices – ideal.  I also believe girls will thoroughly enjoy their adventures too. 

For further reading, I would recommend [[Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers by John Dougherty]]

Thank you to the publisher for sending a review copy to The Bookbag.
 
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[[Category:John Dougherty]]
[[Category:David Tazzyman]]