You Won’t Believe This

Adam Baron's You Won’t Believe This is a funny, big-hearted mystery for 10 year olds told by a boy who simply can't stop talking.

What happens

Cymbeline Igloo (yes, really) thinks Mrs Martin is the best teacher who ever lived. She once ran for Botswana at the Olympics. She makes up a rhyme for every child in her class, every single morning. So when somebody fills her shoes with blue jelly, he's horrified.

And then he giggles. Out loud. Right in front of her.

It's a nervous giggle and it's the worst timing in the world. Now Cymbeline is sure she thinks it was him. And the tricks on Mrs Martin don't stop there.

At the same time his friend Veronique, the class genius, is sleeping over on a school night with her pet rat (he tells his mum it's a hamster). Her grandmother Nanai has been taken to hospital. Nanai came to Britain as one of the Vietnamese boat people, and her twin sister didn't survive the journey. She's never been able to talk about it.

Reading it is like having Cymbeline chatting in your ear. He's hilarious about everything, from teaching a rat to play Subbuteo to how Plato must have got a terrible supply teacher. Then he'll say something small about Veronique crying and it stops you in your tracks.

This one does carry some sadness alongside the jokes. Nanai tells Veronique she thinks she's going to die, and the lost twin sits at the heart of the story from early on. For a child who's recently lost a grandparent, that might feel close to home. For most readers it's handled with so much warmth that it's more comforting than sad.

It's perfect for a reader who loves a laugh-out-loud narrator but doesn't mind a lump in the throat too. And the puzzle of who's picking on Mrs Martin keeps you turning the pages.

What to read next

Cymbeline tells his own story in Boy Underwater as well. It opens with exactly the same words as this one, and a swimming race against the class bully when he's never once been in a pool!