The Boy Who Made the World Disappear

The Boy Who Made the World Disappear by Ben Miller is an adventure for 8 year olds about a boy whose temper meets a very unusual party gift.

What happens

Harrison tries hard to do the right thing. He shares with his little sister Lana and owns up when he breaks something. But when he's worried, his temper can take over completely.

He's dreading Hector's birthday party. Hector bullies him at school and has a nasty habit of pinging him with an elastic band. The space theme is the one thing Harrison is looking forward to.

Then a party gift lets him make the things that annoy him vanish. He's handed a black hole. Throwing things into it seems like a brilliant solution until things he cares about start disappearing too.

You get to know Harrison before the strange present arrives. He loves space and is excited about meeting an astronaut. At the same time, he's afraid of what Hector will do when the adults leave.

That makes his outburst easier to understand. He says space is boring when you already know how much he loves it. If your reader has ever said something they didn't mean because they were upset, they'll probably recognise that horrible muddle.

The telling is very chatty. You hear about Harrison trying to do the right thing, with little asides about the times he doesn't quite manage it. His sister has her own way of making sharing difficult (toys don't always survive).

The black hole gives those everyday frustrations a much bigger consequence. What would happen if you really could make an annoying thing vanish? Harrison gets the chance to find out, then has to face the worry that he can't control what goes next.

It's worth knowing that Hector's bullying includes hurting Harrison with the elastic band. The disappearing things also become frightening when they matter to him. A child who finds bullying or losing loved things upsetting may feel those parts strongly.

For a reader who enjoys a familiar problem turning into something wildly impossible, there's plenty to get stuck into. You can be cross with Harrison and still really want things to work out for him.

What to read next

His sister takes the lead in The Day I Fell Into a Fairytale, which is also in the library. Lana needs Harrison to join her when an ordinary shopping trip opens a way into a world threatened by an evil witch.