Diary Of Dorkius Maximus In Pompeii by Tim Collins

Diary Of Dorkius Maximus In Pompeii by Tim Collins
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Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: The third in this series shows again how the juvenile diary format for reluctant readers can be turned into thoroughly entertaining yet improving novels. Improving for the reader, that is, for this is just about as good as it gets.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 192	Date: May 2014
Publisher: Buster Books
ISBN: 9781780552682
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Dorkius has moved to Pompeii for the summer. Yes, the heady highlights of Rome are far behind as he and his family have gone south, to what looks and smells like a guffy little backwater, while dad is involved in some tax negotiations. Oh, and the sacred chickens are now sleeping with Dorkius in his room, making his time in the town full of idiots even less welcome. But still – surely foolish people left, right and centre are not a problem, when you consider the angry mountain demon up yonder on Vesuvius…

I'll admit to being a little sniffy about the first book in this series when I saw it. Well, I'm of a generation who probably if not expects, then at least suspects, everything that has a Roman flavour to have the famous Frankie Howerd sense of humour. But this book at the third time of asking – nay, nay and thrice nay etc – has made me belatedly but instantly warm to them all.

Funnily enough it was the Roman numerals that date the diary entries that first did it for me. It's just one instance of the little things that have been thought through so thoroughly that makes a success out of the franchise. There's been research here – we get glimpses of the diet and fashions and so on of the lands that became Italy – but it's all worn lightly, as in the mentions of eating dormice. OK, the 'wee laundry' makes too many appearances, but this is a book with a broad sense of humour for the under-elevens, and if you think that's bad, just wait to see where a treasure hunt in these pages takes Dorkius…

Dorkius doesn't actually appear to be too much of a misplaced Wimpy Kid. Yes, he makes silly decisions and doesn't have the best of luck, but he's a welcome and level narrator, and his diaries come across with a very enjoyable sense of comedy. He describes the drama of this particular adventure in a perfectly pleasant way, by which I bring us back to the initial response I'd given the series and what I actually got out of this book. There is no infamy, infamy etc in these pages, even when we've moved much further towards Howerd territory. This is a thoroughly fresh and modern book, believe it or not, and however much I expected this to be a B-category cash-in of the general format, it's much better than that. Plus you get the added light touch of historical information – here conveyed by subtle references to actual Pompeian graffiti, a loose tourist guide to the city as it was back then, and more.

But that's not to labour the more Reithian, educational aspects of this book – the plot even, in a way, manages to surprise the adult reader in what it does and doesn't give us. It is interested in humour and entertainment even more than it is in giving us an accurate historical background for things, and as entertainment it's spot on. Thumbs up, Pompeii, then. Oh nay, now stop it. Mocking – naughty! Etc, etc, ad lib, ad infinitum.

I must thank the publishers for my review scrolls.

Last time round we were in Egypt.

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