Danny Dingle's Fantastic Finds by Angie Lake (Children's, 7 years +, 10E/10E)

July 2015, Sweet Cherry Publishing, 240 pages, Paperback, Review copy 

Content: school and family life, competition, inventing things, lots of humour 

Summary from Sweet Cherry Publishing

DO NOT READ (unless you are Danny, Percy or Superdog.) Just don't. Seriously, DON'T. I'm not joking! BE WARNED: if you turn the page, this notebook will EXPLODE! Meet Danny Dingle, aka 

Experimental Face (ha ha) - super-secret spy and future assistant to the greatest superhero EVER, Metal Face! Danny and Percy know they have to pull out all the stops to beat Danny's arch enemy, Gareth Trumpshaw, who's an evil genius, with an evil genius dad.(They're also big fat cheaters!) Can Dad's special brew of super-fizzy cola save the day? Or will it be down to Superdog to come to the rescue yet again. 

Nayu's thoughts

This is a hilarious and inventive boy orientated read. I never had a brother so I can't speak from experience but Danny's habit of picking random things up and trying to use them to make something seems accurate for boys of his age. Fiddling and inventing lead to some scenes which filled me with astonishment – I felt so sorry for his mother who had to put up with her husband encouraging Danny on. 

I liked the way that Danny worked to create a moving vehicle for the school contest, even if the teachers didn't have much sense when they selected the course which had a fair few scary parts that health and safety would certainly not like. I was either laughing or gasping in terror at what would happen next. A very minor point which didn't detract from the story was that there didn't seem to be chapters, which puzzled me a bit as chapters provide easy stopping points (or not). That aside, it's definitely a book to brighten your day with.

 

Suggested read

Another boy-centered story with inventive items and lots of graphics includes Galactic Hot Dogs: Cosmoe's Wiener Getaway by Max Brallier and Rachel Maguire (Children's, 7 years +, 10/10E)