Maddy Yip’s Guide To Life

Sue Cheung's Maddy Yip's Guide To Life is a laugh-out-loud diary for 8 year olds about a girl who's desperate to find the one thing she's good at.

What happens

It all starts with a spring clean. Maddy is dusting the family trophy cabinet when it hits her. Her little brother Oli has medals for swimming, football AND hacky sack. Mam has a boxing medal. Even Agung, her grandad, has a rosette for Best Exotic Vegetable.

And Maddy? She once won Pin the Tail on the Donkey at a party when she was six. She kept the little plastic trophy, just in case.

Her best mate Dev is sure everyone has a talent. He appoints himself her mentor and hands over his lucky sequinned waistcoat (it smells of boiled onions). What follows is one disastrous experiment after another. A blindfolded warthog drawing comes out with two heads. Recorder practice sounds like someone treading on an owl in a clog.

Maddy's family are half the fun. Mam is hard as nails and has a glare that could crack concrete. Big brother Jack calls her Nut because of a peanut incident when she was five. Agung dunks coasters in his tea, thinking they're biscuits. Then there are the Evil Twins, the three-year-olds Mam childminds, who've painted a stegosaurus on Maddy's wall in ketchup.

It's written as Maddy's diary, so every entry is full of her opinions, most of them grumpy. She's hilarious about her brothers. She's just as funny about her own disasters, like the school nativity where she dropped baby Jesus into a dinner lady's lap.

Underneath the jokes there's something very real. Who hasn't looked around their family and wondered where they fit? Maddy never wallows, though. She just keeps trying the next daft plan.

If you've got a reader who loves a funny diary about a chaotic family, this is a treat. Maddy is eleven and shares a room with her seven-year-old brother, so younger readers will enjoy looking up to her while older ones will recognise every sibling squabble.

What to read next

If they want more of the Yip household, pick up Maddy Yip's Guide to Holidays next. It's Easter, Dev has spotted a poster for a new roller coaster at the seaside, and Maddy's stuck with a brother counting his Easter eggs.