Read Goofballs 03 – Superhero Silliness free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Tony Abbott's Superhero Silliness is a Goofballs mystery for 6 year olds about four young detectives who go undercover in homemade superhero costumes.
Jeff, Brian, Mara and Kelly are the Goofballs. They solve mysteries, and they're very, very silly while they do it.
Their rich friend Randall Crandall needs help. A thief called the Dutchman is after his priceless collection of derders. What's a derder? It's the cardboard tube in the middle of a toilet roll (you'll never look at one the same way again). Randall owns the biggest collection in the world.
He's throwing a masked party and every guest has to come as a brand-new superhero. So the Goofballs raid Mara's basement, which is full of costumes. Brian becomes Tommy Papers, with pockets stuffed full of paper scraps. Kelly wraps herself head to toe in tin foil and calls herself InvisiGirl. Jeff is Elbow Johnny (his power is waving his elbows about very fast).
The logic is gloriously wonky. Tommy Papers reckons any baddie clever enough to chase them must love reading. So he'll scribble half a message on each scrap and throw them over his shoulder, and the baddies will have to stop and read them. And it works!
Jeff tells the story and jots things down in his cluebook as he goes. There's a secret room behind a sliding wall, four ninjas, a chase through a bowling alley and an ice-cream parlour, and a pony pulling a cart of cheesy snacks.
The jokes are the kind six-year-olds find hilarious. Big words the Goofballs get wrong, people saying things twice because the collection is so big, and a squashed derder blasted into someone's ear. If your reader loves a joke they can repeat at the dinner table, there's plenty here.
It's a mystery with no real danger in it. Nobody gets hurt, and who the Dutchman turns out to be is a very happy surprise.
This is the third Goofballs book, and Randall and his butler Picksniff already know the gang from an earlier case.
If they want to see how the gang first met Randall, try Crazy Case of Missing Thunder, where his pony has gone missing and he calls in the Goofballs.
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