Maddy Yip’s Guide to Holidays

Sue Cheung's Maddy Yip's Guide to Holidays is a very silly diary story for 8 year olds about one girl's mission to ride a brand-new rollercoaster at the seaside.

What happens

It's the Easter holidays and Maddy is already bored out of her mind. She shares a room with her little brother Oli, who counts his Easter eggs with a Luke Skywalker figure. Her big brother Jack still calls her Nut because of a peanut incident years ago. He is never going to let it go.

Then she and her best mate Dev spot a poster. A ride called the Mega Beast opens soon in Sudmouth, just an hour away on the bus. They HAVE to go. Their parents won't even pay for posh loo roll, so what are the chances?

How they end up there involves a stash of giant Easter eggs, the terrible toddler twins Mam childminds, and a booby trap made of flour and water. (Top tip from Maddy. Flour and water left long enough turns into cement. On the carpet.)

By some miracle the ruined carpet gets them a free weekend at a seaside B&B. The catch? Their grandad Agung is in charge. He's as blind as a bat without his specs, he eats pickled eggs non-stop and on a trip to the garden centre he laughs so hard his false teeth land in a pot of cacti.

Reading Maddy's diary is like having her chatting away in your ear. She's got a comeback for everything and a list for everything too. When things go wrong she just writes BRILLIANT or AMAZING in capitals, and you know it's anything but.

The jokes come thick and fast. Luke gets his head stuck in a tiny jam jar at breakfast ("Luke's got jammed in the jam"). A giant St Bernard called Princess squashes Oli flat. A seagull with a pair of glasses in its beak gives Maddy nightmares.

Underneath it all she's actually a pretty good big sister and granddaughter. She buys Agung his pickled eggs, holds his arm so he doesn't wander off and keeps Oli out of trouble. Mostly.

If you've got a reader who loves a family where everyone's slightly bonkers, this is super easy to pick up and very hard to put down. There's a bit of Hakka Chinese from Agung too, which is lovely.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Maddy Yip's Guide To Life is where they first met Maddy and Dev. It's the one where she realises everyone in her family has a talent except her, and sets out to find one.