Rotten School 12 – Battle of the Dum Diddys

R. L. Stine's Battle of the Dum Diddys is a very silly school story for 7 year olds about a boy who suddenly can't find anyone to take money from.

What happens

Bernie Bridges is a fourth grader at Rotten School. It's a boarding school, so he and his friends live in a creaky old dorm with no parents in sight. He'll tell you himself that he's a superstar (he's not bragging, apparently).

Listening at the headmaster's door, Bernie hears some big news. Inspectors are coming in a week. If they don't like what they find, Rotten School gets shut down for good.

Does Bernie want to save his school? Not exactly. His first thought is that he's only got one week left to cash in!

So he gets busy. Good Luck tickets for the first graders. A bet on how much dinner will end up stuck to his friend Beast's face. A card tournament. But nobody's interested. His friends are too busy, and they're acting very strange. Belzer says he's Prince Barfo of Barfolonia now. Shy little Chipmunk has turned into Merlo the Merciless.

It turns out the whole school is hooked on Wungo Warriors, a computer game about knights and battles. And the only way in is a five-dollar card from Sherman Oaks, the rich kid Bernie can't stand. Meanwhile the drama teacher has put Bernie in charge of the school pageant. There's a trunk of costumes sitting in his room that he hasn't even opened...

Reading it is like being told the story by the cheekiest kid in class. Bernie talks straight to you. He'll crack a joke about a headmaster so short he needs a ladder to blow his nose, then act completely innocent while doing something sneaky (Sherman's best knight ends up at the bottom of a well).

The humour is VERY gross. Beast eats his food bowl after his dinner, there's burping and barfing, and the book opens on a moose joke I won't repeat here. Bernie also happily takes money off the first graders. It's all played for laughs, but it's worth knowing what you're getting.

If your reader thinks a rude noise is the funniest thing in the world, they'll love it. It's number 12 in the series, but Bernie explains who everyone is as he goes, so it works fine on its own.

What to read next

If Bernie wins them over, go back to where the whole gang started with The Big Blueberry Barf-Off. Bernie's rope T-shirts aren't selling and a school-wide pie battle is on its way.