Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk

Megan McDonald's Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk is a gloriously gross, giggly story for 7 year olds about a boy who would do almost anything for a new book.

What happens

Stink and Webster are mad about the Nightmare on Zombie Street books. Book Five comes out on Saturday, with a Midnight Zombie Walk at the bookshop to celebrate. (It actually starts at ten o'clock, which Judy points out is SO not midnight.)

There's one problem. To get in you need the new book, and two copies cost nearly twenty-six dollars. Stink has spent all his money on a video game.

So the boys set up a Smellatorium. Paper cups of pine cone, cinnamon and eraser crumbs at fifty cents a sniff. Nobody buys a thing until they rename them Zombie Toe Jam and Zombie B.O. Then there's a queue!

Meanwhile the whole school is racing to read one million minutes. There's a mysterious Big Orange Box outside the office, and nobody knows what's in it. Sophie's fairy has turned into a zombie called Zombalina. And a rumour flies round that a zombie has eaten the lunch lady.

Stink's room gets spooky too. He paints his old ventriloquist's dummy, Charlie, into a zombie. Then the lights go out, and a slice of baloney starts hopping across the floor. Who hasn't scared themselves silly with their friends like that?

This book is a love letter to reading, and it's very funny about it. Kids read at lunch and at playtime, and Stink reads to his toad. Stink sniffs his new book because "new book smell is the best".

It's worth saying it does get gory in a pretend sort of way. Brains, eyeball soup and a bucket of fake blood and guts on the walk itself. A dummy seems to move about the house on its own. It's all dress-up and silliness, but a child who's scared of zombies might want you close for the spooky bits.

The chapters are short and bursting with jokes, so it works brilliantly for reading aloud too. You'll be saying "vomitocious" for a week.

What to read next

This is the seventh Stink book. If they're ready for more, Stink and the Freaky Frog Freakout comes next. Stink finds a three-legged frog in the swimming-pool shower, and then frogs start turning up everywhere.