Walk into any bookshop and the David Walliams table is usually overflowing. Twenty-odd spines, all the same Tony Ross artwork, all enticing. So which are the best David Walliams books, and which one do you actually hand to the child in front of you?
So, I have opinions on this based on what I’ve read personally or what my students have said to me about these books before.
Below is my ranked top eight, plus a quick snippet on the rest, because David Walliams has written enough that even superfans lose track. If your child inhales funny books for 8 year olds, most of this list will have something else to offer.
What age are David Walliams books for?
On our shelves they run from 7 to 9, and 7 to 10 is the happy zone for reading them solo. They also work aloud from about 6, not least because doing the villains’ voices is genuinely fun.
What the age question is really asking, though, is something different. These books aren’t hard to read, but some carry proper sadness and big ‘life’ questions. A grandpa with Alzheimer’s. A man sleeping on a bench. A girl whose stepmother treats her like staff. Children take these in their stride, but it’s worth knowing which ones pack the lump-in-throat moments, so I’ve flagged them below.
The best David Walliams books (in my opinion)
1. Gangsta Granny
The one everyone starts with, and rightly. Ben is bored beyond belief at his grandma’s house, because all she wants to do is play Scrabble and eat cabbage soup. Except there are two things Ben doesn’t know about her. She was once an international jewel thief, and she’s spent her whole life plotting to steal the Crown Jewels. Now she needs Ben’s help. Funny, then unexpectedly moving, and the blueprint for everything he’s written since. If Gangsta Granny somehow hasn’t happened in your house yet, start here.
2. Grandpa’s Great Escape
Grandpa’s Great Escape
Plenty of fans would put this first. Grandpa was a World War II flying ace, and now he has Alzheimer’s, so his family move him into an old people’s home called Twilight Towers. What follows is the escape the title promises. This is the one with the sadness flag from earlier, and the one grown-ups end up reading over a shoulder. Best at 9 up.
3. Mr Stink
Mr Stink
Mr Stink sits on the same bench in town every day, and nobody stops to talk to him until Chloe does. She’s lonely too, and once they’re friends she becomes determined to hide him at home so he won’t have to sleep outside any more. The gags are there (the smell gets its own paragraphs), but this is the kindest thing he’s written. From 7.
4. Demon Dentist
Strange things are happening in the dead of night. Children put a tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy and wake up to a dead slug, a live spider, or hundreds of earwigs. The scary-funny one, ideal for the child who wants a villain worth hiding from. It features in our what to read after Roald Dahl guide for exactly that Dahl-ish flavour. Hand Demon Dentist over from 8.
5. Billionaire Boy
Billionaire Boy
Joe has about a billion reasons to be happy. His own bowling alley, his own cinema, a butler who is also an orangutan. What he doesn’t have is a friend, and the book is what happens when he tries to buy one. The premise children most want to talk about afterwards. From 7.
6. The Midnight Gang
The Midnight Gang
Five children on a hospital ward, and a pact that when the clock strikes midnight, the adventures start. It’s about friendship and making dreams come true, and it’s the warmest of the lot. A good first Walliams for a child who’d rather laugh with characters than at them. From 8.
7. Ratburger
Ratburger – David Walliams
Things are not looking good for Zoe. Her stepmother Sheila is so lazy she makes Zoe pick her nose for her, and that’s before the burger man arrives. Peak gross-out Walliams. If your child reads the nose bit aloud at the dinner table, you were warned here first. From 8.
8. Bad Dad
A cops-and-robbers story about a father and son taking on the villainous Mr Big, complete with a mission to break an innocent man INTO prison. High-speed and big-hearted, just a rung below the ones above. Bad Dad works from 7.
And the rest
Four more we stock, for the completists. Fing is the silliest: Myrtle Meek has everything and still demands a FING, whatever that is, sending her parents into the Monsterpedia to find out. Slime gives Ned and his slimepower an island of horrible grown-ups to deal with. Blob is a short World Book Day story about a boy called Bob and a blobfish called Blob. And The Boy in the Dress is his very first, about Dennis, who is different (the clue is in the title), and still one of his sweetest.
Read the whole table already? Then the question isn’t which Walliams, it’s what’s next, and our books like David Walliams guide answers exactly that.
Just so you know…
Little Reads stocks twelve David Walliams books, including every title on this page.
It’s a hand-picked library of 3,000+ books for children aged 5 to 11. A free account gives you 100+ free books, and full access is £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
We’re a library, not a classroom, so it’s not the app for phonics or learning to read.
But if your household is about to lose a fortnight to an orangutan butler, we can keep the supply going.