By Liz Pichon
A schoolboy's doodle-crammed notebook of dodged homework, band dreams, and a big sister he loves to wind up.
Tom Gates would rather do absolutely anything than his homework. He'd rather draw, snack on caramel wafers, dream up names for his band the Dogzombies, or find fresh ways to annoy his grumpy big sister Delia. So instead of finishing his work he fills the pages with doodles, excuses, and running commentary on his teachers, his best mate Derek, and the family dog. Every page is hand-lettered and covered in Tom's own drawings, so it reads more like flipping through a real child's scribbled-in notebook than reading a book.
The words and pictures are tangled together on every single page, with hand-drawn lettering that swells and shrinks with Tom's mood, so a child's eye never hits a wall of plain text. The humor is small and low-stakes, all snacks and doodles and a sister who's easy to bug, which makes it a soft, sure win for a Wimpy Kid fan who wants another child's voice to laugh along with. And there are more than a dozen more Tom Gates books lined up behind it.