My Head Teacher Is a Vampire Rat

Pamela Butchart's My Head Teacher Is a Vampire Rat is a spooky-silly school story for 7 year olds about a creepy new head and a school that might be crawling with rats.

What happens

This is the third book starring Izzy and her gang, and it opens with signs everywhere. DANGER. NO ENTRY. Class 4J has to squash into the Year 6 classroom behind a big curtain. The official reason is a leaky roof. The whispers through the curtain say RATS.

Then a very tall, very pale man walks on stage at assembly and says he's the new Head Teacher. At that exact moment there's a clap of thunder. (Honestly, could the timing be any worse?)

His name is Mr Graves. His office is dark with the curtains shut. He jokes about flying. And behind his desk there's an old photo of him in a long black cape, with more caped figures standing behind him.

Izzy, Zach, Jodi and Maisie put it all together the only way they know how. The rats turned up just as Mr Graves did. Garlic bread has vanished from Italian Day. You can probably guess where this is going!

It's packed with the gang's brilliantly wrong reasoning. A list of everything they know about vampires. Research on Jodi's mum's laptop (until she unplugs it and takes it away). Maisie arriving with plastic bags tied over her shoes in case the rats get in. A steak-or-stake mix-up that only Izzy could manage.

Izzy tells it all in one breathless rush with lots of "So anyway". She keeps wandering off into side stories, like the time Gary Petrie got locked in the store cupboard, or the caravan ghost who didn't like being called boring. It's super easy to read aloud in her voice.

It's spooky in the daft way rather than the scary way. The gang do watch a clip of an old black-and-white vampire film with a bite on the neck, but Jodi's mum is in like a shot to switch it off.

If your reader loves being in on a joke the characters can't see, this is a lot of fun.

What to read next

For more trouble at the same school, try Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies. This time the gang are sure the new head dinner lady is up to something, and nobody can smell the shepherd's pie.