Horrid Henry and the Mummy’s Curse

Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry and the Mummy's Curse is four short, very funny stories for 6 year olds about a boy who always has a brilliant, spectacular idea (and it's always a terrible one).

What happens

It starts at breakfast. Henry and Perfect Peter both collect Gizmos, the little toys that come free in boxes of Sweet Tweet cereal. Henry has every colour except gold. Then Peter tears open the new box and there's a gold gleam.

You can probably guess how Henry feels about that.

His plan is to tell Peter that gold Gizmos are unlucky. VERY unlucky. Everyone who owns one comes to a horrible end, and the only cure is to hand it over to somebody brave. Somebody like Henry.

After that there's a cereal tower in the supermarket, a spelling test, a swimming badge and Peter's brand-new mummy kit, which Henry has been longing to get his hands on. By the end of the title story Peter and Fluffy the cat are wrapped from head to toe in toilet paper. Who hasn't wanted to do that to a little brother?

Reading these is like sitting inside Henry's head while he talks himself into things. Every excuse sounds completely sensible to him. Learning to spell "goat" is bad for his health, because he hates goat's cheese. Peeking at Clever Clare's paper isn't copying. It's double-checking.

And when one of his plans does work, it usually works a little too well. The spelling test is the best example of that (poor Henry).

The stories are short, the shouting comes in CAPITALS and there's a lot of "Stop being horrid, Henry!", so it's a joy to read aloud and do the voices.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is the American edition, so it's Mom, candy and colors rather than Mum, sweets and colours. Henry's made-up list of gold Gizmo victims is quite dark for a joke too (a girl who drowned in the toilet, for one), though only Peter believes a word of it.

What to read next

If tricking Peter out of his prize is the bit that gets the giggles, Horrid Henry Tricks the Tooth Fairy has Henry wild with envy when Peter loses a tooth first, and very keen on the money it's going to bring.