The Metal-Mobile is is the first book in the Danny Dingle's Fantastic Finds series written by Angie Lake and illustrated by Suruchi Sati and Shanith MM. It introduces us to Danny and his best friend Percy who are desperate to become super inventor spies who will one day assist their favourite super hero, Metal Face, who saves the world with his incredible weapon : gas. Namely burps so loud they can blow out your eardrums and supersonic farts that can strip the paint off a door or start an earthquake (a fartquake) if he sits on the floor. The tone is set !
The format, the humour and the style of writing reminded me very much of the Timmy Failure and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and the huge number of drawings will make the book appealing to even the most reluctant readers. There are also endless jokes including lots and lots of toilet humour and I could hear Juliette and Pierre giggling and showing bits to each other when they read it.
Despite its silliness and irreverence, the story does have a couple of semi-serious bits that young readers (I'd say about age 8-12) would relate to. Danny and Percy have an arch-enemy Gareth Trumpshaw, who is an evil genius with an evil genius dad (who happened to be Danny's dad's boss, before he was fired). They are also constant cheaters and the story shows that in the end, cheating isn't a path to success.
It's a really fun book, with lots of cartoon-style illustrations and crazy fonts to break up the text and make it less daunting. I'm sure it's written with boys in mind, given the amount of references to farts and sick, but Juliette also found it hilarious - I read the whole thing through on the bus to workand also found it amusing, but you do have to be broad-minded and not averse to toilet humour.
Book 2 - The Super-Sonic Submarine - is now available and book 3 - The Jet of Justice - will be released this summer.
You can also try your luck at getting your hands on the book for free. The first 500 people to sign up at www.dannydingles-fantastic-finds.co.uk/ and share with five friends (who also sign up) will receive the book for free, but everyone who registers will also receive a free activity pack.
star rating : 5/5
RRP : £6.99
Disclosure : We received a copy of the book from Boolino in order to write an honest review.
This looks great fun!
ReplyDelete