Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman

Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman by Francesca Simon is four short stories for 6 year olds, and the first one is a snowman contest Henry intends to win at any cost.

What happens

Moody Margaret and Sour Susan are next door in the snow, already arguing, when Henry hears the word win and comes straight over.

He can hear that word from miles away, apparently.

Margaret won't tell him what the competition is, so Henry puts his hands around her snowman's neck and says goodbye to its head until she does.

It works. The prize is a year's free ice cream.

What follows is Henry rolling the biggest ball of snow in the street and building something with a horned Viking helmet, fangs and hairy scary claws, while the girls put a pink tutu on a ballerina snowgirl.

His little brother Peter asks if they can build one together. Henry says no, because then he'd have to share the ice cream, and Peter ends up with a lumpy thing with two stones for eyes that he insists is a bunny.

Then at midnight Henry can't sleep. He goes out in his slippers to check, and finds Margaret has crept out and made hers taller.

He needs more snow. There isn't any left. And there's Peter's snowman, just sitting there, where somebody could trip over it and hurt themselves.

That's the bit that makes the whole series work. Henry talks himself into things one completely reasonable step at a time, and a 6 year old can see every step coming.

Your reader also gets to feel very superior, because they know how this ends and Henry doesn't. That's a big part of the appeal.

It's built for reading alone, too. Short chapters, big sound effects, lots of CAPITALS and a fair amount of nah nah ne nah nah.

If you've got a reader who likes being slightly appalled by somebody, this is the one. Henry is mean to his brother and rude to everybody, and the book is entirely clear that he's the problem.

Mind the edition. This is the American text, so it's Mom and Dad rather than Mum and Dad, and the ice cream flavours run to a mouthful.

What to read next

If the brother needling is what gets the giggles, there's a lot more of it in Horrid Henry and the Zombie Vampire. Peter reads out a story he's written about butterfly fairies at the dinner table, and Henry sets about wrecking it with a knife, a plate and a well-timed burp.