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James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein's I Funny TV is a joke-a-minute comedy for 9 year olds about a boy who gets offered his own sitcom and isn't sure he wants it.
Jamie Grimm is back at Long Beach Middle School after a big comedy win out in Hollywood. The banners have come down. Even the customers at his Uncle Frankie's diner have stopped laughing (one tells him he "used to be funny", which really stings).
Then a TV helicopter lands on the school baseball field. A producer wants Jamie to play himself in a show about his own life. There's a thick contract on the table and a very shiny gold pen to sign it with.
Jamie freezes. What if the show is awful? What if they want to make a weepy episode about how he ended up in his wheelchair? And then the small print comes out, and the prize money he's already spent helping his family turns out to come with strings.
As if that wasn't enough, there's a new bully. Lars Johannsen is a giant from Minnesota who voted for somebody else in the contest. He even has Jamie's cousin Stevie, the old school bully, shaking so badly at dinner that the peas bounce off his spoon.
Jamie tells it all straight to you, with a gag every few lines. Some are great and some are terrible on purpose, like the Hollywood joke writer whose puns make Jamie want to gag. You'll probably end up hearing a few of them read out loud!
Under the jokes he's properly nervous. A big chance is also a big chance to fall flat on your face, and plenty of kids will know that feeling before a school play or a big match.
The bullying is rough in places. Jamie gets shoved onto his back in the corridor, and Lars dangles Stevie by the ankles over a toilet. Both bullies call Jamie "crip", which is a slur about his disability. The book is firmly on Jamie's side, though, and he answers with jokes rather than fists. He also mentions losing his first family, which is backstory he doesn't want to talk about rather than something that happens here.
This is the fourth I Funny book and it carries straight on from the earlier ones, so a reader new to Jamie will get the most from starting with the first I Funny book.
If it's the stand-up dream that hooks them, try The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh. Billy has a head full of jokes and a stammer that trips up his punchlines, so he practises them in his bedroom mirror.
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