By Thomas Flintham
It's a video game printed as a book, Super Rabbit Boy loses lives, respawns, and tries the level again until he beats the boss.
Super Rabbit Boy is the hero of a video game, and the evil robot king Viktor has kidnapped the Singing Dog and locked up all the animals of Animal Town. So Super Rabbit Boy sets off, one level at a time, jumping across bounce clouds and dodging robots to reach Viktor's fortress and save the day. The catch is the one every gamer knows: he keeps dying. Fall in the lava, GAME OVER, start the level again. Each try he gets a little farther, until he finally figures out how to win.
Your child says books are boring but has beaten Bowser fifty times, and this one speaks their exact language. It doesn't just have a video-game theme, it's built like a game: levels, a boss, lives to lose, a checkpoint feeling every time Super Rabbit Boy respawns and pushes a little farther. The chapters are tiny, the words are big and simple, and Thomas Flintham draws bright, blocky pixel-art scenes on every single page, so there's never a wall of text to scare them off. It's often the very first chapter book a game-loving child will finish on their own and then ask for the next one.