Horrid Henry on the Go

Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry On the Go is a collection of short stories for 6 year olds, all about Henry being taken somewhere he would very much rather not be.

There's a museum sleepover, with worksheets. There's a French restaurant. There's clothes shopping. There's a weekend at Rich Aunt Ruby's house with his two least favourite cousins.

Each one is its own story, so you can stop after one. Which is handy, because Henry is exhausting in the best way.

The museum one opens the book and it's a good measure of the whole thing. Henry has smuggled in a comic. Miss Battle-Axe confiscates it. Perfect Peter told on him.

So Henry does what Henry does. He informs Peter and his friends, in a whisper, that two teachers at their school are zombie vampires, and then goes through the checklist item by item. Big scary teeth? Tick.

At the restaurant, Stuck-Up Steve tricks him into ordering snails. Henry works out he's been had, decides he would rather die than let Steve see him complain, and eats one.

That's the shape of every story. Henry is horrid, and also being got at, and his revenge is usually more effort than just behaving would have been.

The names carry a lot of the comedy. Moody Margaret, Sour Susan, Weepy William, Anxious Andrew, Lisping Lily who wants to marry him. Once your reader learns them they'll start applying them to people at school.

These read aloud brilliantly. There are capital letters everywhere, lists that build and build, and lines that want to be shouted.

One thing to flag. This is the American edition, and the text says Mom, flashlight, diapers and soccer throughout. It doesn't spoil anything, but a six-year-old reading alone may trip on a word or two and want to ask.

And Henry is properly rude. He calls his brother a toad and a wormy worm, he pushes, he schemes, and he gets told off but not really punished. Most children find the naughtiness very funny and entirely obvious. If yours is currently trying out being rude at home, maybe not this month.

If they're after more of Henry at full volume, there's Horrid Henry's Monster Movie. Henry is desperate to see a horror film, nobody will take him because Peter is terrified of everything, and he decides the answer is to make his own.