Horrid Henry’s Stinkbomb

Horrid Henry's Stinkbomb by Francesca Simon is four short funny stories for 6 year olds about a boy who has never once done the sensible thing.

What happens

The first one is a reading competition, which is a good joke to put in front of a child holding a book.

Miss Battle-Axe gives the class two weeks to read as many books as they can, with a book report on every one. Henry isn't listening. He's busy drawing a crocodile eating her. Snap goes her head. Yank goes a leg. His crocodile ends up with a big fat smile on its face.

Then the word prize floats past and he sits bolt upright.

Everyone starts shouting guesses. Sweets. A skateboard. A hamster. It turns out to be a family ticket to a brand new theme park, and now Henry has to win, because his parents only ever take him to museums and drag him up hills.

There's one small snag. Reading, as far as Henry is concerned, is hard heavy work, and just turning the pages wears him out.

So he'll start tomorrow. Only Tuesday brings five new comics. Wednesday there's a television special. Thursday his friend turns up with a computer game. By Friday he is worn out from his long hard week.

Meanwhile his little brother Perfect Peter has read five books and would like everyone to know.

You can see it coming and it is still very satisfying when the competition turns out to end the next day.

What makes these work is that you sit inside Henry's head the whole time. His reasoning sounds completely fair while you can see precisely what he's up to.

Now, Henry is horrid. That is the entire point. In this story alone he lies about how much he's read, calls his brother a worm, and snatches a book straight out of his hands. It does not go well for the book. Nobody in the story pretends any of that is acceptable, but Henry is a lot more fun to be than Peter, and some children find that very freeing indeed. Not every parent does.

One practical thing. This edition has been changed for American readers. Your reader will meet math instead of maths, candy instead of sweets, and a million bucks. At one point a character talks about a diaper while the book in his hands is called The Happy Nappy. If yours is still sounding words out, that's a few extra hurdles for no reason.

What to read next

If you've got a reader who enjoys a child behaving badly and getting away with almost none of it, Dirty Bertie - Yuck! does the same job in British English. Bertie also has schemes, and his mum has already worked out exactly how last year's funfair went.