George Brown, Class Clown 14 – ‘Snot Funny

Nancy Krulik's 'Snot Funny is a snowy, silly story for 6 year olds about a boy with a streaming cold and a burp that won't behave.

What happens

This is the fourteenth George Brown, Class Clown book. George's class is heading to a snowy resort for a weekend of winter sports. They're competing against two other schools to raise money for a school library in China that lost all its books in an earthquake.

George has signed up for the snowboarding. The judge is his hero, the world champion Dice Nieveson. George has a trick called the chicken salad and he's pretty sure it's a winner.

There are two problems. The first is his nose. George starts sneezing before they're even off the coach, and it gets worse from there (gooey green boogers and all).

The second is the burp. After a rotten first day at a new school, George wished on a falling star, and ever since then a magic super burp has been taking charge of him at the worst possible moments. On the coach it has him flinging chocolate-chip cookies at everyone. Out on the slopes it makes him dance the funky chicken, just as a girl from a rival school pops out from behind a tree.

It's very daft and very quick to read. The bubbles don't just rise, they kickbox his kidneys and leap up into his larynx. It's the sort of silly wordplay that's brilliant fun to read out loud.

There's a bit of heart in it too. George ends up talking his best mate Alex into competing in his place. Can you be really happy for a friend and a tiny bit jealous at the same time? George finds out you can, and plenty of kids will know that feeling.

The gross-out jokes are exactly what the title promises. Snot, sneezes, and one pair of red footie pyjamas with a flap in the back that spill out of a suitcase in front of everyone (they're Louie's, not George's).

If your reader thinks a well-timed sneeze is the funniest thing in the world, George is their kind of hero.

What to read next

If they want another trip to Beaver Brook, A Royal Pain in the Burp has George's class tracing their family trees, with a TV news crew coming to film the results.