Richmal Crompton’s Just William is a set of comic stories for 8 year olds about a boy whose helpful ideas go catastrophically wrong.<\/p>\n
William Brown is absolutely certain, at all times, that he is in the right. In the first story his aunt gives him a shilling. He spends half on sweets called Gooseberry Eyes and half on the pictures, and sits through five films in a row without moving.<\/p>\n
Everything he does for the rest of that day is one of those films. He shoots imaginary pursuers with a pencil and charges straight into his father. He tells the little girl next door, in a low husky voice, that he has weak lungs. (He does not have weak lungs.) He carries a squashed rosebud to his sister’s friend Jack Morgan with a message she never sent.<\/p>\n
And because the painter in the comedy film burnt the old paint off a door, William goes upstairs with a lighted taper and a penknife and does the same to his bedroom door.<\/p>\n
All the comedy sits in the gap between what William thinks he is doing and what everyone else sees. He genuinely believes he is being kind. His father, nursing a headache, believes his son is insane and says so at length. They are both sort of right.<\/p>\n
It’s an old book and it reads like one. There are maids in the house and aunts staying for weeks, a brother at college in agonies over a girl, and a father who takes William by the back of the neck before asking anyone what happened. Your reader may want a hand with a shilling, a taper and “sixpennoth”.<\/p>\n
The stories are short and each one finishes, so it works nicely as one at bedtime with a proper stopping place.<\/p>\n
Is any of it still funny? The set pieces very much are. William on a bicycle he cannot get off, still wearing his hen feathers and a doormat, while half the neighbourhood runs after him cheering, is worth the whole book.<\/p>\n
If your reader takes to him, More William carries straight on. It opens on Christmas morning, with an aunt who has hung a card above his bed reading “A Busy Day is a Happy Day”, a sentiment William distrusts on sight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Richmal Crompton’s Just William is a set of comic stories for 8 year olds about a boy whose helpful ideas go catastrophically wrong. William Brown is absolutely certain, at all times, that he is in the right. In the first story his aunt gives him a shilling. He spends half on sweets called Gooseberry Eyes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11544,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7857,"lr_next_read_anchor":"More William","lr_seo_hook":"A boy with the very best intentions and catastrophically bad results."},"book_tag":[23],"age_group":[26],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[839],"class_list":["post-7856","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-funny-books","age_group-books-for-8-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-richmal-crompton"],"yoast_title":"Just William 01 – Just William by Richmal Crompton | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A boy with the very best intentions and catastrophically bad results. For ages 8+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n