Ratburger

Ratburger by David Walliams is a very funny and surprisingly bleak story for 8 year olds about a girl who has almost nothing and finds a baby rat under her bed.

Zoe's hamster Gingernut dies on the first page. She tries mouth to mouth. She tries wiring his heart to an AA battery with a paper clip. Nothing works.

Her stepmother Sheila waddles in, offers her an empty crisp packet to bury him in and waddles out again.

Things weren't always like this. Zoe's dad used to work at the ice cream factory and came home every night with samples of new flavours for her to try first. Cola Cube and Jelly. Peanut Butter and Banana Foam. Whizz Fizz Spacedust Explosion. (Snail and Broccoli was not a winner.)

Then the factory moved to China, Dad lost his job and stopped going to the Job Centre, and Sheila moved in.

So Zoe is on the 37th floor of a leaning tower block with a stepmother who sells her toys for cigarettes. There's nothing in the fridge but lager. Her school shoe has lost its sole and flaps when she walks.

Then one night something is nibbling her sock in the corner of the bedroom. It's a baby rat. Tiny pink nose, enormous hopeful eyes, absolutely terrified of her.

She coaxes it out with crisp dust on her fingers. It falls asleep on her pillow and snores.

She names him Armitage, which she reads off the inside of a school toilet, and takes to smuggling him into lessons in her blazer pocket because leaving him at home would be a death sentence.

Worth knowing before you hand this over, because it's a lot. Zoe's mum died when she was a baby and her stepmother has thrown away the photographs. Her dad is out of work and drinking. Sheila gave her a used tissue for Christmas and laughed while she opened it. A girl called Tina spits on Zoe's head from the flats above every single morning on her way to school. And a much loved pet is dead in the opening pages, described plainly.

A child who's lost a pet recently may find that first chapter genuinely upsetting. A child who worries about their own grown ups may find the middle of it worse.

If your reader can take all that, this is a proper underdog story and it's very funny with it. The jokes keep coming right through the misery, which is exactly why it works.

One more thing. Sheila's size is a running joke and the book is not subtle about it. If comments about fat people in books bother you, they'll bother you here.

Mr Stink is the natural next step, same author. Chloe is lonely, her mother thinks a tramp on a bench is beneath talking to, and Chloe goes and talks to him anyway.