Prince Not-So Charming 3 – The Dork Knight

Roy L Hinuss's Prince Not-So Charming 3 - The Dork Knight is a very silly story for 6 year olds about a prince who would far rather tell poo jokes than joust.

Carlos has been sneaking out to work as a jester. Birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, nothing too big. Then he sells out a thousand-seat arena, sings a song about how his parents have no idea, and spots his father standing at the back of the room.

His punishment isn't the dungeon. (They haven't got one. Carlos suggests they build one.) Instead his dad decides the princely way to entertain ten thousand people is jousting, which means armour, a horse who loathes him, and a very long pointy stick aimed at somebody else's face.

Luckily Carlos has Smudge. Smudge is a dragon the size of a moose with the personality of a pug after a belly rub, and he knits. He turns up in pink wool booties he made for sneaking, which don't work, because his toenails poke through.

Smudge decides that bestest friends don't let bestest friends get stabbed. So Smudge will be the horse.

The jokes are aimed squarely at six. Poop, poopers and poopies do an enormous amount of work. The jousting coach is Gilbert the Gallant, who is tall and handsome and brave and patient, and Carlos hates all of it. What he hates most is that Gilbert is nice about it, because if Gilbert were a jerk the hating would be so much easier.

The best running gag is Smudge helping. Gilbert says no fires. Smudge sets the hay bale alight anyway, twice, to save Carlos the trouble of hitting it.

Reading it is fast. Lots of talking, a joke every few lines, nothing held for long. It's a good pick for a reader who has just left picture books behind and wants something that makes them snort.

This isn't the first one. Carlos has been jestering in secret for months when the book opens, and his parents already know he takes lessons, so the ground was laid somewhere else.

Once Upon a Prank is where that happened, and it's in the library. Carlos is still rehearsing his routine in the corridor there, bells on his hat, hoping nobody in the throne room can hear him coming.