How to Eat Fried Worms

How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell is a funny story for 8 year olds about a boy who says yes to the most revolting bet going.

What happens

Billy has a bit of a reputation. Dare him to do something and he'll do it. Last winter he spent a whole night out in an igloo his friends had built.

So when Alan says he couldn't manage a worm, Billy doesn't even pause. Fifty dollars says he can. One worm a day for fifteen days.

He isn't worried either. Worms are just dirt, and there's a second-hand minibike he's had his eye on since the summer.

What he hasn't thought about is that Alan and Joe get to pick the worms. The first one arrives boiled, on a silver platter, and it's the size of a souvenir pencil.

The arguing is the best part. Is a night crawler even a worm? (Joe runs off for his dad's dictionary to settle it.) Can they dig by the manure pile? Tom says no, because you still have to be fair even when nobody made a rule about it.

Children sort out the rules of their own games exactly like that. Your reader will know the feeling of a friend bending things very slightly in their own favour.

And Billy is very good company by the time the eating starts. Down goes the worm under ketchup and mustard and horseradish and a shake of cinnamon. Then he hops round the barn flapping his arms and pretending he's gone mad, and his friends absolutely fall for it.

Alan, meanwhile, is chewing his thumbnail and worrying about his savings account. Joe is already inventing ways to make Billy give up. There's a lot of plotting going on that Billy knows nothing about.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The worms really do get eaten and the book gives you every detail. They're dug up, cooked and cut into bites with a fork. A child who finds that sort of thing genuinely stomach-turning may not want to stay with it.

If your reader thinks revolting is the entire point of a good story, they'll be thrilled. It's daft rather than cruel, and the worms are a joke all four boys are in on.

What to read next

For another child who enjoys watching friends plot against each other, there's The Terrible Two in the library. Miles turns up at a new school with a notebook full of his best pranks and finds out somebody there is already better at it than he is.