WeirDo

Anh Do's WeirDo is a funny school story for 7 year olds about a boy whose name is the first joke everybody makes.

What happens

New town. New school. New teacher asking for his surname, which is the bit he really hates.

His dad was born in Vietnam and his surname is Do. His mum's name before she married was Weir, and she loved it too much to give it up. So the register says Weir Do.

He counts to three in his head. The whole class laughs right on cue.

Then he trips over, because he is wearing his big sister's old shoes, because his mum is saving money. A girl reaches down to help him up and he decides on the spot that she is the most beautiful person in the world.

That is the first three minutes, and it tells you exactly what the book is like.

The rest is Weir explaining his family, and honestly the family is the best part. Sally the older sister who makes her bed and makes him look bad. Roger the toddler who is not getting on well with the toilet. A dad who tells you off for passing wind and then does it himself and blames the chair. A granddad so old that bits of him occasionally fall out and have to be popped back in.

Your reader gets Weir's running list of what he lost out on when they were handing things round. Fast running. Height. Good hair. And then the list of things he does love, which is where the book gets properly funny, because it is all the very small stuff. Turning your pillow over to the cool side. Getting back from the kitchen exactly when the adverts end. Finding a toilet just in time.

He also draws, constantly, mostly animals crossed with other animals. A duck plus a poodle is a doodle. A frog plus a pug is a frug.

Fair warning that the humour is squarely bottom and burp territory and it does not let up. Farts, scabs, nose pickings, a little brother's toilet training. If that is a hard no in your house, this is not the book. If your reader is at the stage where a well-placed fart is the funniest thing that has ever happened, this will go down very well indeed.

What to read next

And if it is, Bookmarks Are People Too is waiting. Hank Zipzer is not trying to be funny either, he is just bad at spelling, bad at reading, and somehow always the one getting the laugh.