The Paninis of Pompeii by Andy Stanton.
This book is full of nonsense….and, it is hilariously silly and very amusing.
The stories are about a family who lived in the Roman times. They live near a volcano which spews mirror- men (a funny creature that the author does not fully explain), pencils with rubbers on the end and spears with rubbers on the end. The book itself consists of short stories about the same family and characters. Andy Stanton starts off describing each of the main characters: Caecilius, the father and fart merchant who is very rich with 'buzzle-swuzzles' (their denomination of money), Vesuvius, the mother (and wife of Caecilius), Filius (Vesuvius and Caecilius’ only child), Barkus Wooferinicum (Filius’ dog) and Slavius, the family slave.
This book has child’s humour in it as it’s about blow offs, urine and just lots of random things. For instance, Caecilius is forever stroking people’s hair fondly, or jumping out of windows before realising it would be much more convenient to just go down the stairs! Also, to add more hilarity, some of the characters are called things like ‘Onlyappearsinoneotherstoryicus’.
If you’re about eight then I think you’ll love this book because it’s funny, you will be able to read it without help from an adult and the letters are nice and big! This book is also very similar to one of my favourite books, Mr.Gum which is also very popular for younger children and is again by Andy Stanton. This novel is perfect for early readers and I think that The Paninis of Pompeii will be a great success with younger readers everywhere as Mr.Gum was.
Thanks for reading my review,
Polly Delafond, 10.