Tom Gates – Super Good Skills (Almost…)

Liz Pichon's Tom Gates Super Good Skills is a funny end-of-term story for 9 year olds, told by a boy whose skills are super good (almost).

What happens

This is the tenth Tom Gates book. It's nearly the holidays and Mr Fullerman is in a VERY gloomy mood. Tom's head, meanwhile, is full of far more important things. Like which crisps to get for the next band practice.

Then the holiday homework folders come out. Tom's is so stuffed that it spills everywhere. So he decides to write a list, just like his very organised classmate Amy. It turns into a list of homework excuses.

Mr Fullerman catches him at it, of course (his sneaking skills are off the scale). Tom says it's ideas for a story. So now he has to write one, and his story about his sister being an alien is right there in the book.

The last day of term is No Uniform Day, which Tom and Derek have both forgotten. Cue a secret mission into school to grab their PE T-shirts. Then it's off on the family holiday, where Tom finds out Delia is bringing her friend Avril and he's squashed into the extra seat at the back.

Reading it really is like sitting next to Tom in class. You get what he says out loud and all the cheeky bits he keeps to himself. He offers to draw on Marcus's T-shirt to cheer him up. What ends up on the back is not quite what Marcus had in mind!

Every page is covered in Liz Pichon's doodles, and lots of the words are hand-lettered, some BIG and some tiny. The story comes in short bursts between drawings, lists and jokes, so it's super easy to keep turning pages without noticing how far you've got.

There are activity pages too. Your reader gets asked to design a T-shirt, draw an alien or invent new snack flavours (sausage and sock, anyone?). A pad of paper nearby is probably a good idea.

If your child likes a laugh and a doodle more than a big adventure, this is a very easy one to hand over. The biggest problems here are crisp flavours, a grumpy sister and turning up in the wrong clothes.

What to read next

Want more of Derek, Marcus and Mr Fullerman? Try Best Book Day Ever, where Tom is making an Alien Scale Monster costume and hoping it wins a prize (after last year's wrapping-paper disaster).