A L Kennedy’s Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Almost Entirely Unplanned Adventure is a rescue story for 7 year olds about a kidnapped badger, four soggy llamas and a man wearing no socks.<\/p>\n
Bill’s small, polite and a bit of a worrier, and he’s always wanted to be a famous explorer. He gets lost on an evening stroll, something grabs him, and he comes round inside a sack on a cold stone floor with two enormous women looking down at him.<\/p>\n
They’re Ethel and Maude McGloone. They call each other “my pet” and “my sweet” and they’re perfectly horrible. They’ve decided Bill’s going to be a prize fighter called Battling Badger Bob, in red shorts, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Over the hill, under a rain cloud that only rains on them, four llamas from Peru are having a worse time still. They answered an advert promising sunshine, hammocks and all the lemonade they could drink. What they got was Farmer McGloone, a tent that collapsed the first night and one bucket of scraps between four.<\/p>\n
Then there’s Uncle Shawn. He’s tall and thin, his trousers have holes in them because he reckons it makes him look like a man who has adventures, and he’s carrying a dozing mole in one pocket and toasted cheese fingers in the other. He finds Bill’s pawprints in the mud, reads what happened off them, and decides something’s got to be done.<\/p>\n
Kennedy’s writing is the real treat. Maude laughs like wet hens running into each other. Ethel’s eyes are the colour of bad-flavoured boiled sweets. Your reader will hear every word of it.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing, because this one’s genuine. The McGloones intend to eat the llamas. There’s a stretch where the farmer and his wife unlock the knife cupboard and sharpen everything in it, and the book stops and warns you itself that sensitive readers should look away. Bill gets his ears slapped more than once and is told his tail will be cut off if he doesn’t put the shorts on.<\/p>\n
Nothing’s dwelt on and nothing actually happens to them in the pages we see. But it’s there, and it’s nasty on purpose.<\/p>\n
So if animals in danger upset your child, leave this one. If they’ve enjoyed Roald Dahl’s crueller grown-ups and found them funny rather than frightening, this is squarely in that tradition and they’ll love it.<\/p>\n
The Twits is in the library too. Mr and Mrs Twit keep a family of monkeys in a cage and make them stand on their heads all day, and the monkeys have had quite enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A L Kennedy’s Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Almost Entirely Unplanned Adventure is a rescue story for 7 year olds about a kidnapped badger, four soggy llamas and a man wearing no socks. Bill’s small, polite and a bit of a worrier, and he’s always wanted to be a famous explorer. He gets lost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11646,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9489,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Twits","lr_seo_hook":"A kidnapped badger, four soggy llamas and a rescuer with no socks."},"book_tag":[18],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[33],"class_list":["post-9621","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-animal-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-a-l-kennedy"],"yoast_title":"Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Almost Entirely Unplanned Adventure by A L Kennedy | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A kidnapped badger, four soggy llamas and a rescuer with no socks. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n