View source for Tom Gates: Everything's Amazing (sort of) by Liz Pichon

{{infobox1
|title=Tom Gates: Everything's Amazing (sort of)
|author=Liz Pichon
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's the third book in the series and our year 5 lad is doodling away and keeping us entertained.  Boys will love the book - even reluctant readers.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=402
|publisher=Scholastic
|date=March 2012
|isbn=978-1407124414
|website=http://www.lizpichon.co.uk/books/books.htm
|cover=1407124412
|aznuk=1407124412
|aznus=1407124412
}}
Tom Gates, our chronicler of all that happens in Year 5, is back with more stories of all that's happening at school and at home.  He and his friend Derek decide to enter Derek's dog, Rooster, in the local dog show, but they might have been just a little over-enthusiastic with the shampooing and Rooster ends up looking rather more fluffy than usual.  Tom and his sister Delia are still at daggers drawn over, well, just about everything and she's not impressed by the noise that Tom and his band make when they're practicing.  Still, Tom has a birthday coming up and his only worries are that some of Granny Mavis' baking might be just a little too unusual and if his Dad does DJ then the whole thing might turn into a disaster.

It's the usual cast of characters, from maths teacher Mrs Worthington (or Worthing''tash'', as Tom will call her - and sometimes to her face), Marcus Meldrew, the class nuisance (well, that sounds better than ''cheat'' doesn't it?) and Amy Porter who might be the cleverest person in the class but she's lovely with it and a big supporter of our Tom.  Despite the fact that the text in the book is quite sparse the characters are well fleshed-out and kids are going to recognise all of them, if not by name.

If you've read the [[The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon|first]] and [[Tom Gates: Excellent Excuses and Other Good Stuff by Liz Pichon|second]] books in this series you won't need me to elaborate on the comment about 'sparse text', but just in case you haven't - the books is presented as Tom's doodles 'n diary and it's quite close to a comic format.  It might look like a chunky book at just over four hundred pages but it's actually quite a quick read with a lot (and I really do mean ''a lot'') of illustrations and minimal text.  It's going to engage any boy from year three to year five, but it's going to provide real encouragement to a reluctant reader.  Not may books can prove quite so well that reading is ''fun'' - not least because there's really no point in this book being read to you.  You need to ''read'' it and see the illustrations.

It's great fun and laugh-out-loud funny and I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.  We also promise to behave in class and get our homework done on time.

Do have a look at [[The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon|The Brilliant World of Tom Gates]] and [[Tom Gates: Excellent Excuses and Other Good Stuff by Liz Pichon|Tom Gates: Excellent Excuses and Other Good Stuff]].  And now we'd like Liz Pichon to do something similar for girls!

We pass our review copies on to a local school and the teacher tells me that the boys are getting '''a lot''' out of all the Tom Gates books.

[[Liz Pichon's Tom Gates Books in Chronological Order]]

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