Beware! Killer Tomatoes

Beware! Killer Tomatoes by Jeremy Strong is a funny story for 8 year olds, told from a hospital bed by a boy who is sure he's about to be arrested.

What happens

Jack Lemming has broken his leg. Badly. He's flat on his back for four weeks with a weight hanging off his foot to keep the bone straight.

He is very clear about how he feels. Bored. Bored as big as a planet. Jupiter, probably.

His family are no help. Mum says he's a walking disaster. Dad says he isn't a boy who has accidents, he IS one.

So Jack talks to you instead. He does the voices, he does little playlets of his parents being unsympathetic, and he keeps stopping to check you're following.

The ward is the whole world for now. Kirsty, who Jack calls Princess La-La, is thirteen and wins every argument. Liam lives in a nest of pillows and answers questions like a comedian.

Between them they invent the mangospoon, which is a catapult made from a hospital spoon. Ammunition is lunch. Macaroni cheese sticks to the ceiling beautifully for about four minutes.

Something to know before your reader starts. In chapter one Jack tells you that his bike crash was tomato-related, that somebody died, and that it was his fault. He goes back to it whenever the ward goes quiet.

It's the engine of the book and it's meant to be a joke you're waiting for the punchline to. Whether it stays funny depends on your child. If they take a line like that literally, they will worry about it for several chapters, because Jack does not explain himself quickly.

There's a fair bit of hospital in here too. Broken bones, an operation Jack didn't quite have, and Kirsty's food allergies, which are serious enough to put her back in a bed. It's all handled lightly. A child who is nervous about hospitals might still find it close to the bone.

For everyone else it's a comedy about being trapped in one room with two people you didn't choose. Jack's version of school is very funny. His teacher's favourite subject, he reckons, is repetition.

There's also a class trip to a stately home with a famously painted ceiling, which turns out to be covered in people with no clothes on. His teacher goes red and starts talking about the floor.

What to read next

Another narrator having a rubbish week and plenty to say about it? My Brother's Famous Bottom hands over to Nicholas, whose dad decides the answer to having no money is a farm in the back garden. Mr Tugg, the maniac from down the road, gets a mention in both.