Worst Class in the World

Stanley and Manjit didn't mean to make the whole class sick with homemade biscuits. They didn't mean for Killer the dog to eat the teacher's shoes. They had a plan, and it was completely foolproof, and somehow none of that helped. Mrs Bottomley-Blunt has officially declared 4B the worst class in the world, and she is not entirely wrong, but you wouldn't want to be in any other one.

We love it because:

• Joanna Nadin's comic timing is absolutely spot on: the disasters escalate with perfect logic, each one following inevitably from the last, and children who have ever had a foolproof plan go catastrophically wrong will recognise every beat
• Stanley and Manjit's friendship is warm and funny and completely believable: two children who genuinely mean well and are genuinely always in trouble, for reasons that are always at least partly their own fault
• Rikin Parekh's illustrations are brilliant: energetic, characterful and scattered through the text in exactly the right places to make a newly confident reader feel completely at home
• The first in a series, which is always welcome news when a child finishes a book and immediately asks what happens next

What's in the box:

• Paperback, 176 pages
• Illustrated throughout by Rikin Parekh
• By Joanna Nadin, published by Bloomsbury

Great for:

• Ages 6 to 9
• A birthday gift, a just-because book, or the thing you hand a child who has just finished their first chapter book and needs something to follow it up
• Children who love school stories, chaos, dogs eating things they shouldn't and plans that go beautifully wrong

Important to know:

• Paperback, 176 pages
• Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8cm (7.7 x 5 in)
• Illustrated throughout
• ISBN: 9781526611833
• Published May 2020