Kell and the Horse Apple Parade

Darcy Pattison's Kell and the Horse Apple Parade is a funny school story for 7 year olds about an alien boy with a whole parade to organise.

What happens

Kell Smith looks like any other kid in third grade. He isn't. His family comes from the planet Bix, and nobody at school can ever find out.

The Smiths run Aliens, Inc., which plans parties. Now they've been hired to put on the Friends of Police parade. It's their first parade, they badly need the money, and none of them has a clue how Earthlings raise funds.

Then there are the horse apples. The Mayor won't let the police horses march unless somebody deals with what they leave behind on his streets (Kell has to put that one on his list of things to look up). Add a trip to City Hall and a big falling-out with his best friend Bree over a game of hopscotch, and he's got his hands full!

Worse still, Principal Lynx has a brand-new phone app for catching aliens. When it finds one, it plays a cowboy song. So Kell spends a lot of this book keeping well out of her way.

It's told by Kell himself, and his version of Earth is the best bit. He learns about eavesdropping and wonders whether humans really hang off roofs to listen in. He's very relieved to hear a cowboy isn't a boy with horns. Who knew Earth words were so confusing?

There's a warm streak too. When a classmate ends up in hospital after a spider bite, Kell goes to visit even though hospitals scare him silly. Then a nurse offers everyone a go on her stethoscope. Kell doesn't have a heartbeat to hear, so he quietly makes the THUMpa, THUMpa noise himself and hopes nobody notices.

The jokes are gentle, and the main menace is a very nosy head teacher. Any child who's been the new one and not quite got the rules will feel for him. It's an American school story, so it's third grade, Mom and Dad all the way through.

What to read next

Kell's story starts in Kell, the Alien, his first week at an Earth school. Bree's birthday party is coming up, and Kell has just offered to plan it.