Grimwood

Nadia Shireen's Grimwood is a wildly silly animal adventure for 7 year olds about two city fox cubs running away from the nastiest cat around.

What happens

Ted is small and sweet and makes up songs. His big sister Nancy is tough, drinks far too much coffee and has looked after him for as long as he can remember. They live in a den in a city park and eat out of the bins behind Speedy Chicken.

The trouble is Princess Buttons, a spoilt ex-pet cat who wants every bin for the cats. One night Ted goes looking for a hot dog, takes a big bite, and finds her tail inside the bun. Yes, he bites her tail clean off (by accident!).

So the foxes run. A rat on rollerblades gives them a map to Grimwood, a forest where they'll be safe. Probably.

Grimwood is gloriously weird. The mayor is a kind, sleepy stag who lives in a campervan. There's an owl with enormous eyebrows, a duck who claims she used to be in films, badgers who crash their Jeep into trees, and squirrels who fling themselves from tree to tree for sport. And there's Willow, the tiniest, fluffiest bunny in the forest, who is absolutely NOT cute and will thwack you if you say so.

The jokes come thick and fast, and the narrator keeps popping in to chat to you about what's going on. It's a brilliant one to read aloud, voices and all.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The humour is quite dark in places. A pigeon has lost a foot to Nancy. An eagle bites the head off the rat the foxes were meant to find (it happens on the page, and then she burps). Nobody stays sad for long and it's all played for laughs, but a very young or sensitive child might want a grown-up alongside. Older brothers and sisters will probably think it's the funniest thing they've read.

What to read next

If they fall for Ted and Nancy, the foxes are back in Grimwood: Let the Fur Fly!, where Nancy has joined the forest's treebonk team.