Borgon the Axeboy and the Dangerous Breakfast by Kjartan Poskitt and Philip Reeve

Borgon the Axeboy and the Dangerous Breakfast by Kjartan Poskitt and Philip Reeve
Buy Borgon the Axeboy and the Dangerous Breakfast by Kjartan Poskitt and Philip Reeve at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: Great fun is to be had with a young savage boy and his annoyingly intelligent girl neighbour, as he seeks to prove how brave he is by making the world's most dangerous breakfast.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 160	Date: July 2014
Publisher: Faber and Faber
ISBN: 9780571307333
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A real Barbarian breakfast has to have two elements – fun, and danger. So when Borgon wakes up wanting to prove himself to be the last of the really crazy and brave savages in Golgarth Basin, it's not enough to just give his parents a batch of crocodile tails – especially when his mum Fulma can't eat them as it's her teeth-sharpening day. So off he goes in search of a ridiculously dangerous breakfast, such as a Barbarian might only eat once or twice. The mysterious food source certainly provides a lot of danger, and the book itself provides a lot of fun too.

Kjartan Poskitt surprised me a little by starting another series of short little reads for the under-tens, but I'm really glad he did with this one. The scene-setting is simple, and the characters are cartoonishly broad, from Borgon to Grizzy, the annoying girl from next cave over. The book doesn't take too long to get going, and we're off on a weird and eventful adventure, with some very humorous parts, especially towards the end.

Perhaps inspired by the success of The Croods movie a couple of years ago, this series looks set to cater for the young savage reader with a lot of hearty slapstick, leavened by Grizzy being proven right with her slightly smarter, more modern mind, and something weird-looking called a book. The moral addressed here once and in a small way, about reading being good for you, will be evident to the audience of this title, for it will certainly entertain. The size of the world map at the beginning, and the fact the adventure ends with everyone pretty much as they started, proves we will be back for more. I don't know how much mileage Poskitt will be able to get out of a silly savage boy but I would trust him to manage several more similar volumes. This one by itself provides a perfect blend of smart daftness for the target audience, and they will definitely be wanting more.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost by Kjartan Poskitt was the latest by this author I'd had the pleasure of reading. For a similar wacky adventure to the book above, but for it's readers' younger sibling, we recommend Pigsticks and Harold and the Incredible Journey by Alex Milway.

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