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Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space is a very silly school story for 7 year olds where the new dinner ladies have tentacles.
It's the third Captain Underpants book, but George and Harold catch everyone up in a comic at the start. They hypnotised their head teacher, Mr Krupp, and now he turns into a superhero in his pants whenever someone snaps their fingers (a splash of water turns him back).
This time it starts with a fizzing papier-mâché volcano in science. Next morning the boys leave a fake cupcake recipe in the school kitchen, heavy on the baking soda and vinegar. The cooks decide to bake for the whole school. KA-BLOOOOSH!
Green goop fills every corridor and the cooks quit in a huff. Three new ones turn up that same afternoon, in LOTS of make-up, calling themselves Zorxette, Klaxette and Jenniferette. Mr Krupp hires them on the spot. No experience, no references, no problem.
Who could have guessed they came from the spaceship on the school roof? Soon the whole school is drinking their milkshakes and turning into grey, clammy zombie nerds. George and Harold have been banned from the dinner hall, which turns out to be very lucky indeed.
It's a great one for a child to read alone. The chapters are short (one is just two words long) and there's a picture on nearly every page. There are comics drawn by George and Harold themselves, spelling mistakes and all. And in the Flip-E-Rama pages you flick quickly between two pictures to make the fight move.
The jokes are pure bogey-and-bottom stuff. The lunch menu offers Boston baked boogers. A zombie secretary bites a chunk out of Mr Krupp's desk. The narrator even tells you the heroes have gone SPLAT, then says just kidding.
George and Harold are proper pranksters and the book is firmly on their side. They flood the school and fib about it. Their comic also has the old dinner ladies die of their own cooking and climb out of their graves as zombies. It's all cartoonish, but a child who takes things literally might need a chat about what's a joke. For a reader who loves daft rule-breaking, though, it's giggles all the way.
If they want more of George, Harold and Mr Krupp, try the Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000. It jumps a long way ahead in the series, so expect a few new faces, but there's the same narrator chatting away and a giant robot toilet smashing through the school.
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