LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
November 2022 Debut of the Month
David Wandsworth’s The Corny Scaredy Cat Paranormal Investigation Squad debut is a treat for readers who like stories that blend adventure with lots of laughs. Driven by entertaining dialogue and the unmistakeable voice of its anxious eleven-year-old protagonist, it’s a pacey page-turner with plenty of paranormal hi-jinks and hilarious absurdities.
Alastair has been feeling pretty isolated since his best friend Barry moved away: “You see, since we’d met in nursery it had been me and Barry against the world. Now, it was the world against me.” But everything changes when new girl Saoirse arrives at his school. In Alastair’s words, she “looked like trouble…She looked like she could be the best friend you could ever have, who’d defend you to the death, or your worst enemy who’d never give up until she beat you.”
Thankfully, despite being somewhat akin to chalk and cheese (Saoirse is confident and fearless, while Alastair is often anxious and confused), they strike up a bond and she soon has him drawn into her obsession with solving ghostly mysteries. As their adventure leads them back in time to the history of their Cornish village, more mayhem comes courtesy of Saoirse’s wild boy of a little brother — readers with younger siblings will sagely recognise his endearing penchant for yelling “Bum bum!” at any moment, opportune or otherwise.
Characterful and comic, this tale of unlikely friendship and overcoming fears is a fun romp of a read.
Joanne Owen
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About
The Corny Scaredy-Cat Paranormal Investigation Squad Synopsis
Eleven-year-old Alastair leads a lonely life in darkest Cornwall: his parents ignore him, his only friend has moved away, and he’s beset by a plethora of frankly embarrassing nervous conditions that ensures permanent ostracism from the rest of his class.
But then who should arrive in the village but Saoirse, a new girl, cool where Alastair’s pathetic, smart where he’s perennially confused, unconcerned with school popularity contests and obsessed with unsolved mysteries involving ghosts. In her wake is her adorably potty-mouthed little brother Billy, crazy, reckless, a force of nature and a law unto himself.
Everywhere he goes, Billy creates a hurricane of chaos to which he’s oblivious. Saoirse pressgangs Alastair and Billy into a team of wonderfully incompetent ghost hunters and through their adventure into the village’s murky past, replete with sinister sword wielding ghosts, Alastair is forced to confront his own shortcomings as well as his greatest fears.
A comic debut full of strong, memorable characters and a plot littered with twists and turns. Themes of friendship, being true to yourself, and overcoming deep insecurities, conveyed with a brilliant comic touch.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781911427230 |
| Publication date: |
28th October 2022 |
| Author: |
David Wandsworth |
| Illustrator: |
Rory Walker |
| Publisher: |
Everything Thing With Words |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
268 pages |
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Press Reviews
David Wandsworth Press Reviews
‘David Walliams meets Goosebumps’ - The Bookseller
Author
About David Wandsworth
David Wandsworth grew up outside Chicago, but an ingrained Anglophilia led him to jump the pond and settle in London. Here he teaches secondary school, obsesses over the Beatles and Frank Sinatra and talks about nothing but film. Such disparate and unlikely influences as Proust, Kierkegaard and Groucho Marx inform his prose.
He has a lovely daughter whom he forces to watch old movies and fake-laugh at his jokes, and tries to write books that would appeal to her.
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