Charlie Small – Gorilla City

Charlie Small's Gorilla City is a wild explorer's journal for 7 year olds, written by a boy who set off on his raft one rainy afternoon and still hasn't made it home for tea.

What happens

Charlie's computer game has just died on him and Mum wants his room tidied. So he grabs his rucksack and goes exploring instead.

The rucksack list is the first thing your reader will love. A penknife (Mum would kill him if she knew). A ball of string. A big bag of stripy mint humbugs. Pyjamas, just in case. A mobile phone with a wind-up charger, and a pack of wild animal cards full of very scary facts.

The stream at the bottom of the garden has flooded. His raft gets swept away, a bolt of lightning hits his paddle, and before long he's riding a crocodile over a waterfall into a jungle!

Then he rings his mum. She says it sounds wonderful, reminds him not to be late for tea and asks him to pick up a pint of milk. Every time he rings she says EXACTLY the same thing, as if no time has passed at home at all. It's a brilliant running joke and it's a bit spooky too.

Everything in this land seems to want to eat him. Hyenas circle his camp at night. A huge glowing snake rears out of the grass. Something with angry red eyes follows him through the trees.

But he also makes a friend. A steam-powered rhinoceros, made of tin and rivets, that eats grass for fuel and lets Charlie ride on his back. (Charlie even uses him and a very strong spider's thread to get himself up a palm tree for a phone signal.)

And then a giant silverback gorilla swings down, scoops Charlie up and carries him off to a city of platforms high in the treetops.

It's written like a real explorer's notebook, with lists, a diagram, his animal cards and a newly named species (the Charliesmallicus, because all good explorers name something after themselves). Your reader feels like they've found the actual journal.

One sad bit to know about. The rhinoceros doesn't make it through his fight with the snake, and Charlie is very upset. There's also a hyena that grabs his ankle and drags him from his bed. A child who gets very attached to animals might want a hug at that point.

What to read next

If your reader loves the rucksack as much as Charlie does, try My Father's Dragon next. Elmer Elevator packs a knapsack with pink lollipops, rubber bands and six magnifying glasses and heads off to a jungle island to rescue a baby dragon.