Julius Zebra: Rumble with the Romans!

Gary Northfield's Julius Zebra: Rumble with the Romans is a daft, noisy Roman romp for 8 year olds about a grumpy zebra who ends up in the Colosseum.

What happens

Julius HATES the watering hole. It stinks, it's full of crocodiles, and his show-off big brother Brutus loves it. So one day he sneaks off on his own. Big mistake! He falls into a pit, a lion lands on top of him, and some Romans cart them off in a cage.

His cellmate is Cornelius, a warthog who knows a fact about everything (whether you want to hear it or not). Cornelius is sure they're off to watch the circus, with juggling monkeys. The lion says they're going to die. Guess which one of them is right?

Pushed out into the arena, Julius grabs a dropped sword, whacks a gladiator's shield by accident and the whole crowd goes wild. So the Emperor Hadrian sends him and his friends off to gladiator school. They've got a month to get ready for the Emperor's birthday games, and the champion of those wins his freedom.

The gang is brilliant. There's a crocodile called Lucia who says she's a vegetarian, an antelope who collects rocks, and a tiny mouse in gladiator pants who dreams of fighting. And nobody can get Julius's name right. He's Debra to the lion and Barbara to the mouse, and every single time he explodes. ZEBRA!

It's very, very silly, with a proper bit of Roman history hiding inside the jokes. Cornelius explains centurions, aqueducts and giant bronze statues, and Julius hears "aqueduct" as "Aqua Duck". Partway through, Julius tells you about his training himself, like a diary, and it's hard not to laugh at his lesson in the Ancient Art of Poking.

The lion's warnings are grim, and there are arrows and clubs flying about in the arena. But it's all played for laughs, and Julius is much more likely to burst into tears than get hurt.

If you've got a reader who likes a hero who'd really rather be at home, Julius is their zebra. This is the first book of his adventures.

What to read next

If they love Romans behaving badly, Diary of Dorkius Maximus is kept by a Roman boy who's desperate to be a mighty hero but keeps falling over in his big brother's armour.