Review: Funny Children's Book
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 29, 2014
Ten-year-old Johnny Nothing attends his Uncle Marley's funeral. The unpleasant Uncle Marley had a ton of money but no friends. Johnny inherits a portion of his dead uncle's money. He can dramatically increase the amount if he still has the total amount at the end of a year.Johnny's parents are focused on immediate gratification. They don't care about the longer term vision of pots of money. Johnny has to figure out a way to end up with the total amount in spite of his parents throwing away the money.Johnny's father Billy is a very unpleasant man:"Imagine if an alien landed on our planet and the first person he bumped into was Billy MacKenzie. After spending a couple of minutes with Billy, the alien would conclude that our species was powered by gas. That’s because Billy was one of those grown-ups who couldn’t stop himself from producing gallons of mouldy methane. If it wasn’t coming from his mouth in the form or big fruity burps, it was coming from his bottom with a smell like a blocked drain or an egg sandwich that someone is eating in the seat next to you on the train. And like a lot of grown-ups Billy thought that he was extremely clever whenever he produced one of these rancid stinks."Johnny's mother is even worse than his father:"She looked like she been to the garage to put air in her car’s tyres, and while bending over to tie her shoelaces somebody had put the air hose up her bum hole and switched it on to earn  250 on ‘You’ve Been Framed’. She looked like the Incredible Hulk just as he was getting angry and his clothes were starting to split. Except her body wasn’t green. It was pink and floppy with stretch marks. Whenever she moved loose, wrinkly bits of it poked out in all sorts of places."Johnny Nothing by Ian Probert is an excellent book for children. At the same time, it holds several themes for adults, particularly parents. The writing style is chatty, as if you're sitting in the park with your son while he regales you with the funny tales of Johnny Nothing. The illustrations are excellent, and add to the book. As a final treat, the book includes endnotes which are hilarious.