My FANGtastically Evil Vampire Pet 01

Mo O'Hara's My FANGtastically Evil Vampire Pet is a very silly summer camp story for 7 year olds about a wannabe evil scientist and the kitten he isn't allowed to bring.

What happens

Mark has a place at Evil Scientist Summer Camp, where you learn traps, disguises and a spot of evil water polo. His friend Sanj put a filter on the camp website so both their mums think it's an eco camp for nature-loving children. Mark's packing list ends with one extra item. His vampire kitten, Fang.

Pets are strictly banned. There are random bag checks at the gate, and a boy caught with a stick insect in a tiny lab coat gets marched off to the stockade. Fang, meanwhile, is not the type to stay quietly in a rucksack.

Then it starts going wrong. Geeky Girl, who once helped Mark's little brother spoil his plans, turns up with her budgie. Sanj swaps Mark for a new partner with shampoo-advert hair and hangs on to the notebook they filled with evil plans. So Mark is stuck with Geeky Girl for the week's contest, where the winners are crowned Evil Emperors of the Week and the losers go home in the Canoe of Shame.

Mark tells it himself and he's hilarious without meaning to be. He wants SO badly to be cool and evil, and he's really a bit of a softie. When his tentmates hear Fang hissing under his bed, they decide it's a snake. Mark wrestles the "snake" with lots of noise, wraps ketchup-covered hot dogs in a T-shirt and walks out a hero.

The jokes come thick and fast. Top Five lists, an evil camp song with rubbish lyrics, a camp leader karate-kicking a camper into the lake as a lesson in surprise. Even the shouty bits are daft rather than mean.

If your reader loves a narrator who gets everything a little bit wrong, this is a winner. It's also great for a child who'd rather be the villain for once (who hasn't wanted that?).

What to read next

It works fine on its own, but Mark and Sanj have a history, and some of it happens in another series. In My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish, Mark's little brother Tom tells the story of the day Mark got a chemistry set and tipped green gunk into a goldfish bowl.