Stink and the Ultimate Thumb-Wrestling Smackdown

Megan McDonald's Stink and the Ultimate Thumb-Wrestling Smackdown is a funny, bouncy story for 7 year olds about a boy who has to find a sport, fast.

What happens

Report Card Day is Stink's favourite day of the year. He's sure he's got all O's for Outstanding, and he does. Except for one big fat U. In PE!

Mum and Dad decide he needs to take up a sport. Stink is short, the bat is bigger than he is, and he has no intention of being squashed flat in football. So he flicks through the sports channels instead. Ditch-snorkelling. Cheese-chasing. Wife-carrying (and Stink does NOT have a wife).

Then he finds it. Thumb-wrestling! No equipment needed, and you can do it anywhere.

He and his best friend Webster make masks for their thumbs. Stink's is Shark Hammersmash, silver with pointy red teeth. Webster's is T. Rex Wasabi. Webster wins every single match.

His big sister Judy beats him too, by shouting "Yeti alert!" and pinning him while he looks. Then Sophie beats him in the middle of a maths lesson, the class gets so loud that the noise-meter siren goes off, and Stink takes a not-happy note home.

So Stink tries karate instead. In his blue dressing gown, to start with. He snaps pencils, chops a cushion into a snowstorm of feathers, and knocks the head off Judy's prized Giraffe Award. Oops.

At karate class he falls on his bottom more than once. A boy called Rooster calls him Ballerina Butt. And the teacher keeps asking him to be a calm pond with no ripples, which is the opposite of how Stink feels about everything.

The real joy is how much Stink wants things. He's never half-hearted about anything! You'll probably recognise that kid who's sure the next new thing is going to be THE thing.

There's a lovely bit where he reads picture books to a dog in training to guide blind people. The dog runs off with the book and ends up in the returns bin.

The chapters are short and full of sound effects, so it's a great one for a newly confident reader or for reading aloud. It all comes down to one last thumb war in the back garden.

What to read next

This is the sixth Stink book. If your reader wants more, Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk comes next, with Stink and Webster trying to raise the money for a brand-new zombie book before the big night at the bookshop.