Bad Dad

David Walliams's Bad Dad is a funny, action-packed car-chase story for 7 year olds about a boy who thinks his dad is the greatest driver who ever lived.

What happens

Frank's dad Gilbert was King of the Track. He raced a souped-up Mini called Queenie with a Union Jack painted on her, and people beeped their horns when he walked down the street.

Then one night something goes badly wrong with Queenie, and she crashes. Dad loses his leg, then his job, and not long after that Frank's mum leaves for "a big house with a small man". (That line is pure Walliams.)

All of this happens in the opening chapters, and it's genuinely sad. Frank watches the crash from the top of a pile of old cars. Later, men come to collect debts and take the TV, the sofa and even his bed. If your reader is living through a family break-up, it might land close to home. For most children, the jokes and the hugs between father and son carry it along.

And there are LOTS of jokes. Dad's Auntie Flip reads out her dreadful poems (one rhymes custard with mustard, then apologises for it). The vicar gets knocked flying when Frank rides a laundry basket down the stairs, and later bravely sips the worst cup of tea ever made.

Then Dad takes a mysterious new job, driving "very fast". Frank sneaks out to spy on him and ends up clinging to the roof of a Rolls-Royce as it leaps over a whole line of police cars!

The man in the passenger seat is a tiny, snarling crime boss called Mr Big. He makes it very clear he knows about Frank, and that's what keeps Dad doing as he's told.

So there's a pub, some real threats and a boy lying to his babysitter to sneak out at night. It's all played for thrills and laughs, but it's there.

What holds it together is Frank and his dad. They call each other "mate", and whenever things go wrong one of them asks for a "huggle". Who wouldn't want a dad like that, even a slightly bad one?

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Billionaire Boy is another father and son whose lives are turned upside down by money, only the other way round. Joe Spud has everything, including two crocodiles, but not a single friend.