Rod Hunt (1) (1939–)

On being advised that he is too young to attend a mosque school, a child tries to look over the school wall to see what he's missing out on. He falls and is trapped behind a lamp-post. Once extracted by an unnervingly cheerful emergency services crew, the head of the school, who is coincidentally the boy's grandfather, is so overcome by joy that he waives the age limit and admits his grandson to the establishment. He'll probably regret this after he's slept on it, when he finds himself show more devoting valuable teaching resources to distracting this hyperactive health-and-safety-disaster-waiting-to-happen. show less

Aimed, without text, at Stage 1 readers, this is a very funny book. It cocks a snook at librarians obsessed with fines and jumpers and at Oxford preppy kids with Boris haircuts and reading Proust.

A bit sad because it rolls out all the Dutch cliches - cheese and a girl with her finger in the dyke, anyone? - but still one of the more bearable of the Chip and Biff glowing key adventures.

Cute story about a problematic Grandmother who takes her grandkids and their friends on a day-trip to London that inevitably ends in disaster. Features the bizarrely named characters Biff and Chip, yet again.