Stories Aloud
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Publication date: 06 Jun 2013
ISBN: 9780857632722
Size: 185 x 129 mm
Length: 272 pages
Fiction

The Grunts in Trouble

5-7
Quantity

The first in the hilarious series from Roald Dahl Funny Prize winning author Philip Ardagh and illustrator of The Gruffalo, Axel Scheffler.

Mr and Mrs Grunt, who are neither clean nor clever, live with their adopted in fact, abducted son, Sunny, in a donkey-drawn caravan somewhere or other at some time that is a bit like now but not exactly now. Sunny is an odd-looking boy, what with his left ear being higher than his right ear and that kind of sticky-up hair which NEVER goes flat, even if you massage glue into it and then jump on it. Together the unusual family find themselves in frankly improbable but very funny adventures involving bendy railings, double-barrelled shotguns, full-fat yoghurt and, always, a beard of bees.

Stories Aloud

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“Philip Ardagh is a master storyteller and he narrates this tale with zest, irreverence and a keen sense of the absurd. Packed with jokes and characters as weird and wonderful as you could possibly hope for, this new series is destined to be adored by young readers.”

– Booktrust

“Highly eventful and effortlessly funny, it’s very ably illustrated by Gruffalo superstar Axel Scheffler, while Ardagh’s nimble-footed, rapid fire prose demonstrates a real intelligence – at the service, thankfully, of the delightfully disgusting and silly.”

“Author Philip Ardagh and illustrator Axel Scheffler press all the right buttons with a new series featuring the outrageously comic Grunt family and their hilarious ragbag assortment of neighbours … Children will love the antics of this amazingly weird family and the extra special illustrations that bring the story to life. The adventures of the Grunts are set to run and run…”

“Axel Scheffler’s illustrations impart a quirky comic charm to Ardagh’s daft and comic story about the Grunts, whose silliness and bad behaviour are in the tradition of Roald Dahl’s Twits and Andy Stanton’s Mr Gum … Ardagh will always go the extra mile for the sake of a joke, even to the point of being a bit tiresome, like giggly seven-year-olds getting carried away. So he is perfectly on their wavelength.”

“Gloriously repulsive … as always with Ardagh, there is the clever word-play, irony and plain silliness that make his books such fun …. To add to the enjoyment, the book is full of wonderfully incisive and daft illustrations by Axel Scheffler.”

“From new readers will come giggles of glee, total involvement and genuine sympathy with poor Sunny … The atmosphere of chaos and disorder is beautifully depicted in Axel Scheffler’s illustrations”

“Their adventures are as unsavoury as they are entertaining, as Axel Scheffler’s illustrations wittily show. Fans of Andy Stanton’s Mr Gum and Roald Dahl’s The Twits will delight in this disgusting but amiable family.”

“I think this is a great book for around eight years and over as there is a lot of funny name calling and kicking things. This book cracked me up.”

– Sam Walters, aged 10 (We Love This Book)

“I think girls aged about 10 would enjoy this book. I think my friend Martha would really like it as she likes the same things as me, and I really enjoyed this book. Martha likes funny books and this is a really funny book. It was different, funny and not too long! I give it five out of five stars.”

– Scarlet, via The Guardian‘s children’s reading group The Book Munchers

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