The Shark-Headed Bear-Thing

Barry Hutchison's The Shark-Headed Bear-Thing is a daft monster-hunting adventure for 7 year olds, starring a boy who is desperate to fight something big.

What happens

Benjamin Blank lives in the village of Lump with his uncle Tavish. Tavish is the blacksmith. He has a mechanical arm because he lost his own one (chopping onions, apparently).

He also invents things, and most of them don't work. His Automated Breakfast Producing Device fires a hot egg at Ben's head and shoots the toast straight through the roof.

Ben wants to go and fight an ogre. Tavish says he's far too young. Then a very small, very cross girl called Paradise Little bangs on the door. A monster is wrecking her village, and she needs a warrior.

Ben is the only one going (whether she likes it or not).

Before they set off, Tavish takes Ben down to a basement he never knew they had. There's a sword stuck fast in a rock, and a metal glove that fits him perfectly. Both were found in the wreck of the wagon where Tavish found baby Ben. So there's a mystery about his parents running underneath all the silliness.

Then it's out on the road, where everything goes wrong at speed. A rope bridge snaps. A boy in a star-covered robe has been dangling off it since Tuesday. His name is Wesley Chant and he says he's a wizard.

And a troll challenges Ben to a game called Burp or Death. You can probably guess what round two is called.

It's SO silly, and very quick. A lot of the jokes come from the three of them bickering. Ben swears he has fought loads of monsters (he hasn't). Paradise swears she never gets lost (it took her three days to walk twenty minutes). Wesley is mostly scared of everything.

Who wouldn't laugh at a hero being knocked out by a slice of toast?

It's worth knowing that the monster really does flatten a village and carry off the mayor, and the troll does threaten to eat them. But it's cartoon peril, and nobody stays scared for more than a sentence. Ben's parents being taken is backstory, told in one short scene near the start.

What to read next

If they want more of Ben, Paradise and Wesley, The Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing is another of their adventures. It's set on the darkest night of the year, when the children of Lump dress up as the scariest monsters they can think of (and Wesley comes as a butterfly).