229. Horrid Henry by Francesca Simon

Horrid Henry by Francesca Simon. Illustrated by Tony Ross (US) - (Canada)
Horrid Henry (#1)

Pages: 90
Ages: 7+
Finished: Oct. 4, 2011
First Published: 1994 UK (2009 US)
Publisher: Jabberwocky/Sourcebooks
Genre: children, humour, realistic fiction
Rating: 5/5


First sentence:
Henry was horrid.
Acquired: Borrowed a copy from the local library.

Reason for Reading: I thought ds should be able to read this as his reader and I had read good reviews of how funny they were.

First, we must get one thing straight.  Henry is a horrid little boy.  He is naughty, likes to cause trouble, is contrary on purpose, likes to make his perfect brother miserable and is never happy unless he gets his own way.  Each book contains four short stories and in no way whatsoever does Henry ever learn a lesson, have things turn out bad for him or say he's sorry at the end.  No, Henry may have things go not quite the way he planned at the beginning but they only turn out better than he had planned and in the end he gets what he wanted or even better.  Henry is no role model, nor can we learn a life lesson from him BUT he is absolutely hilarious, laugh out loud funny.  My son wants to read more books in the series and even if he didn't, I would read them on my own and I am way out of the 7 to 10 recommended age group!
This is the first book written and so the first story simply introduces us to horrid Henry and his brother perfect Peter.  Henry decides to try being perfect for a day to see what it is like and while he finds it irritating at times, he so confuses his parents and annoys his brother that Peter gets into trouble for a change and Henry can't stop laughing and ends up in his room as usual.  Next Henry causes a ruckus at dance class; he'd rather go to karate lessons.  Practicing to be a raindrop for Henry is more fun when he does his elephant dance and one thing leads to another until he's finally kicked out of dance class.  Hopefully karate classes will now fill in the free time on Saturdays.  Then Henry gets together with his neighbour Moody Margaret and the two of them end up in the kitchen making a disgusting, gloopy, gummy, greasy mess called Glop, which they've dared each other to eat.  Finally, we end with a camping trip, but Henry's idea of a campground and that of his parent's vary from each other considerably.  He wants to go where Moody Margaret's family goes: they have electricity, a pool, TVs, a fridge, a shower and more.  Mom and Dad want to go back to nature.  Let's just say that when Harry is finished with them, Mom and Dad may never want to be left alone with nature again!  Hilarious!  Ds did a good job of reading the book, too!  It was just a tad over his ability but he enjoyed the stories so much he just kept on going!

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