The Boy in the Dress

David Walliams's The Boy in the Dress is a funny, tender story for 8 year olds about a football-mad boy who falls for a dress.

What happens

Dennis is twelve and lives in a very ordinary house on a very ordinary street. His mum left a couple of years ago. Since then his dad has banned any mention of her, and the house rules are no crying and no hugging.

Dennis still has one photo. It's Mum at the beach in a yellow dress covered in flowers, and he loved that dress.

He's also the best striker in his school team. That matters, because football is the only time his dad hugs him.

Then he spots a copy of Vogue in the newsagent's with a girl on the cover in a dress just like Mum's. He buys it (hidden under a football magazine) and keeps it under his mattress. Raj, who runs the shop, is a treat. He'll try to sell Dennis eleven rolls of Christmas wrapping paper in March.

A detention brings Dennis face to face with Lisa, the coolest girl in school, who's sketching dress designs instead of writing her lines. She thinks everyone should be able to wear whatever they like. Before long there's an orange sequinned dress, a pair of gold shoes and a lot of giggling on her bedroom floor.

Walliams talks to you the whole way through. He even stops to admit he doesn't know much about football. Is it a shooter or a striker? He has to look it up.

Underneath the jokes it's quite a sad book about a family that's stopped talking. Dennis cries quietly in bed so his brother won't hear. His dad spends his birthday alone at the kitchen table with a can of lager. Those moments really land.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Dennis's brother calls him Denise and uses an old slang insult for gay people. There's a passing mention of the dad's "rude magazine", and quite a few jokes about the dad's weight. None of it lingers, and the book is firmly on Dennis's side.

For a child who's ever felt a bit different, that's really the point. It's kind, it's silly, and it takes Dennis seriously.

What to read next

If they're ready for more Walliams, Mr Stink has another lonely twelve-year-old, Chloe, who makes friends with the town tramp when her mother has strictly forbidden it.