Here’s Hank – Always Watch Out for the Flying Potato Salad!

Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver's Here's Hank Always Watch Out for the Flying Potato Salad is a very funny story for 6 year olds about a boy who dreads being asked to write anything down.

What happens

It's Take Your Child to Work Day and Hank has forgotten to ask his mum. Again. His brain does that.

So he blurts out that his plans are a surprise. They're a surprise to him too.

His mum runs a deli called the Crunchy Pickle, and she says yes at the last minute. Hank turns up with goop in his hair and socks that match, feeling very grown up indeed.

Then Carlos hands him a pad and pencil and sends him over to take an order for three hungry men.

Hank can spell milk. He has a shot at bread. Pastrami? No chance. So he decides to keep the whole order in his head, which is where it all goes wrong.

Blueberries end up on a cheeseburger. Pickles end up on a waffle. The men walk out without paying.

Being inside Hank's head is the whole pleasure of this one. He is honest about everything, including the things he would be better off not saying out loud. "My brain knows that, but my tongue forgot."

He has a brilliant line for his little sister's iguana and a worse one for the class bully. He also knows exactly when he has pushed it too far, usually about a second afterwards.

What I really like is how the book handles the spelling. Nobody makes a speech about it. Hank simply cannot do it, he would rather hide that than ask for help, and his mum tells him quietly that the hiding is the problem.

If you've got a child who finds reading or writing harder than their friends do, that bit might land. In a good way. Hank is never the joke.

There is also a LOT of slapstick. A dropped egg, a pile of pastrami washed in coconut soap, and a bowl of potato salad that goes up in the air and comes down over absolutely everybody.

Your reader doesn't need to have met Hank before. This one stands on its own.

What to read next

If it goes down well, Hooray! My Butt Left the Bench! is in the library too. Hank talks his way into a basketball trial in front of the scariest teacher in the school, having already admitted he cannot shoot, rebound, jump or dribble.