Wigglesbottom Primary: Super Dog; Pamela Butchart, illustrated by Becka Moor

Super Dog is the fourth in the series of books about the adventures, misadventures and crazy day-to-day goings-on in Miss. Riley’s year two class at Wigglesbottom Primary School.

Life is never dull at Wigglesbottom Primary School and today is no exception. Out on the playground, there’s a magical dog on the loose that has an incredible disappearing act and the power to heal. In the canteen, the dodgy mash potato is causing a great deal of confusion. And out on the sports field, Susie is using her own very special egg, that might have an alien inside, for the egg and spoon race. Teacher Miss Riley has her work cut out to solve these shenanigans…

Pamela Butchart serves up another delicious helping (unlike the canteen mash potato) of school-based fun in three brilliantly bonkers short stories. All kids will wish they went to a school that is as bizarre and as weirdly fun as Wigglesbottom Primary. No matter where - inside, outside, the classroom, the canteen, the playground, the sports field - the children are sure that there is something going on and more often than not it is something definitely not good. It all makes for a highly relatable and rip-roaring read that will leave bellies aching from laughter.

Accessible storytelling and a consistent model make these great, easy to follow reads. Children are quickly pulled into the action with an exciting or, more often, strange event and then things go off in all manner of crazy and wonderful directions as imaginations take over. By the end, all has been resolved, sensible explanations have been given and Miss. Riley’s class is back to some kind of normal, until next time.

The stories, at approximately thirty pages each, are guaranteed to keep young readers engaged and the lively illustrations, in shades of red, bring the school shenanigans to life. Crammed full of fun, silliness and awesome kids these are the kind of stories that ensure that children are reading for pleasure and will well and truly get kids ‘hooked on books’.

Recommended for 6+.