A Brotherly Bother (Pip Street) by Jo Simmons

A Brotherly Bother (Pip Street) by Jo Simmons
Buy A Brotherly Bother (Pip Street) by Jo Simmons at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: Less of a mystery this time round, but the kids of Pip Street have a major task on their hands to defend their neighbourhood in this breezy fourth entry to the series.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 176	Date: August 2014
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN: 9781407132846
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This is a tale of two elderly men, neither of whom can get around very well without help. One is Richard Keiths, who has lived on Pip Street, and taught electric guitar lessons, for as long as anyone can remember. He needs his mobility scooter, but it's gone and broken down. The other is a mysterious rich man, who swoops into town on the back of a crazy sleigh towed by five huge malamute dogs. For some reason he seems to have an eye on the Keiths house, number 8, and is talking of demolishing it – and possibly even the whole street – so he can go fracking for oil underneath everyone's happiness. Oh, and he's also Richard Keiths' brother. Can our heroic children friends raise enough money to keep the scooter on the road and the road intact from the baddy's evil intentions?

The whole ethos of this book seems to be friendship. Bobby and his little friend Imelda – she of the confused vocabulary – are great friends together, and of course are liked by all the adults in the neighbourhood, even the one who draws chalk rings round dog poo as an exercise in shaming the owners. They all do friendly things with each other, like watching antique programmes on TV, and so when the push comes to the shove there is a lot of activity they can get involved in to help raise funds. But however small the book is the plot isn't just as straightforward as you might think.

Yes, adults will see the end coming a great way off, but before then the junior reader – and this is really aimed at a junior reader – will definitely have some fun. There's a quirkiness to the telling that so many books for this age group have to have now – wacky similes and metaphors, unusual bursts of funny word use and so on. But the narrator is very friendly too, to carry on with the theme, and for its slightness this – like the others in the series I have met – have a quite strong sense of charm about them.

I think with the dialogue chosen for the plot here the book is far too repetitive – kids will get the threat to the street without everyone here telling everyone else the problem at least once. The illustrations look a little odd too at times, with their chalky scrawl added to by glossy Photoshopped items here and there. And there are some evidently unrealistic factors to the feel-good story. But feel-good it remains, which is to our benefit, and comes from this being a very amenable and enjoyable little series.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

We first met the series here. The Dangerous Discoveries of Gully Potchard by Julia Lee should appeal to this audience, for a much longer read.

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