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Grk and the Phoney Macaroni by Joshua Doder (view source)
Revision as of 09:45, 15 February 2012
, 09:45, 15 February 2012no edit summary
Now this is a tense story - even for someone many times the age of the intended reader. I simply couldn't turn the pages fast enough to find out what happened to Tim and Grk. The Duke of Macaroni wants to be the next Italian Prime Minister but he has a dreadful secret which he would do anything to ''keep'' secret. Well, actually, I think he has more than one dreadful secret and there was certainly one twist near to the end of the book which I didn't see coming.
It's a great adventure story for boys who are just beginning to emerge from the stage of ''decoding'' what they see on the page and emerging developing as people who read for the pleasure of the story. There are no amusing pictures and acres of white space to mak the pages turn faster - the chapters might be helpfully short (averaging out at rather less than five pages each) but this is essentially a ''proper'' book and not an early reader.
We've long been fans of the author who is probably better known as [[:Category:Josh Lacey|Josh Lacey]]. He's reliable and he writes the sort of story to which boys can relate and this series is set in the real world with no ''tricks'' to get the hero out of a difficult situation. It's definitely a book to buy as it has real re-readability and no current cultural references which are going to make it feel dated in a very short time. Great stuff.