Just Stupid!

Andy Griffiths' Just Stupid! is a set of very silly stories for 10 year olds about a boy whose brilliant plans go horribly wrong.

What happens

Andy is busting. He is standing in the supermarket, he cannot remember a single thing his mum asked him to buy, and the only thought in his head is finding a toilet.

Then he skids round a corner and flattens an old man with a walking frame.

That is how it all starts. An apology he does not think he owes anybody. A floor covered in tins that have rolled three aisles away. A store manager who makes him pick up every last one.

Out in the shopping centre it gets worse. A pencil seller who will not take no for an answer. A map with three levels and roughly half a million shops on it. A bloke in a rainbow shirt who wants to explain that the journey matters more than the destination.

Then his shoelace gets eaten by an escalator. His finger and a good chunk of his hair go in after it.

Reading it is like listening to a friend describe the worst day of their life, except the friend is a boy who is completely certain that none of it was his fault. You get every thought exactly as it arrives. His running commentary on button shops and cat ornament shops has nothing to do with anything and is very funny.

It is made up of separate stories with names like Expel Me!, Food Fight and Snail Aid. In one of them Andy turns up on the first day back with his feet on the desk and a plan to be expelled before lunch. His mate Danny thinks this is a fantastic idea and asks if he can be expelled too.

So it is a good one to dip in and out of. Handy if your reader likes finishing something in one sitting.

One thing to be clear about. The humour here is toilet humour and it does not let up. That first story is entirely about needing a wee and it ends roughly where you would fear. If that sort of thing is banned in your house, this book is not going to win you round.

If your reader thinks it sounds like the best idea anyone has ever had, they will be very happy indeed.

There is also a moment where Andy stands outside the disabled toilet, wonders whether using it would start him off on a life of crime, and decides against it. The word used throughout is handicapped, which is how it was written in 1999. Might be worth a quick word about that.

What to read next

If they want more of Andy at his most ridiculous, try Just Tricking! It opens with him lying very still in bed pretending to be dead so he can get out of school. His dad is not fooled for a moment.