The Bad Guys 3 – The Furball Strikes Back

Aaron Blabey's The Furball Strikes Back is the third Bad Guys book, a very silly comic-style romp for 7 year olds where the scariest villain yet is a guinea pig.

What happens

Mr Wolf gets a tip-off that bulldozers are about to flatten the homes of cute furry animals in the woods. So the gang race off to save the day (Shark dressed as a bunny, Piranha needing the loo at the worst possible moment).

Then it all goes wrong. The bulldozers turn out to be cardboard and sticky tape. A laser cannon blows up Wolf's car. And Wolf, Snake and Shark end up dangling upside down in the lair of Doctor Rupert Marmalade.

Marmalade looks like the cutest guinea pig you've ever seen. He's actually a billionaire mad scientist, he's VERY cross about some chickens the gang set free, and he's got a big red button. Who knew guinea pigs could be so grumpy?

Outside, it's up to Piranha and Legs the tarantula (who made a very lucky escape) to sneak in after them. Legs is sure he's seen a ninja. Piranha is sure ninjas only exist in fairy tales.

The best bit is the squabbling. Snake is sick of Wolf's hero plans, so Wolf snaps and swallows him whole. Then Shark swallows Wolf! Snake, now stuck inside a wolf inside a shark, isn't impressed (he says it's like a really disgusting nesting doll). Shark's rule is simple. Nobody comes out until they can learn to be friends.

There's a sweet side too. Later on, Wolf tells Snake he'll never give up on him, while they're hurtling along on a motorbike Wolf can't actually ride.

Reading it feels more like a comic than a novel. Nearly every page is pictures and speech bubbles, with a few words in big bold capitals, and some pages are just one giant MUNCH or SPLAT. Lots of the jokes are in the faces. A child reading alone can whizz through all nine chapters in one sitting and feel very pleased with themselves. There's plenty of toilet humour too (at one point Piranha very nearly poops his pants), so it depends a bit on your house rules!

It also stops on a cliffhanger, with TO BE CONTINUED on the last story page. So your reader will probably want book four close by.

What to read next

This one carries straight on from the gang's earlier adventures, and the jokes land best when you already know who's who. New to the gang? Then go back to the first Bad Guys book and start where Wolf, Snake, Shark and Piranha start.