George Brown, Class Clown – Burp or Treat… Smell My Feet!

Nancy Krulik's Burp or Treat... Smell My Feet is a Halloween giggle for 6 year olds, starring a boy whose magic burps make him do the one thing he's trying not to.

What happens

George Brown has a secret. Ever since a wish on a shooting star half came true, a super burp comes fizzing up from his belly and grabs control of his arms and legs. Whatever the burp wants, George has to do. And the burp has terrible manners.

It starts in the shop, where the burp makes George eat a bag of candy corn he doesn't even like. Then it rolls him on his back in a snake-haired monster mask, waving his stinky feet at a crying toddler. (You can probably guess what he shouts.) His mum's face goes from red to purple.

This is George Brown, Class Clown at Halloween, and there are two stories in the book. In the first, a prankster calling itself the Phantom starts turning the school upside down in the week before the Halloween parade. Desks flipped over. A rubber worm in the spaghetti. A mask on the science skeleton. Snooty Louie decides straight away that George must be behind it, and soon half the school is whispering too.

That's the bit that'll really hit home with a lot of kids. It's SO unfair! George hasn't done anything, but because he's the funny one everyone assumes it's him. Even his friends look at him a bit sideways for a moment. So George gets out his notebook, writes down every clue and sets out to prove it wasn't him.

The second story takes the gang to a pumpkin patch, where the burp picks the worst possible moment to come back. It's also the one where George worries that a friend might be moving away.

It's full of the kind of word play young readers love. Bubbles that "kickboxed his kidneys and boomeranged from his bladder". A burp so loud it knocks a mask out of Alex's hands. It's very silly and very American (candy, sneakers, fourth grade), which is part of the charm.

Who doesn't secretly love a book where the naughty stuff isn't really the hero's fault? If your reader likes a mystery with their toilet humour, this one ticks both boxes.

What to read next

George once played pranks on a girl called Katie Kazoo at his old school, and she has her own series. Try I Hate Rules, where Katie (who once burped in front of her whole class too) is fed up with her strict teacher. And a magic wind could turn her into somebody else at any moment.