Money can't buy real friends ( )

I read this book to my 9yo son (English is his second language), and we enjoyed it more than Mr Stink, which was a little too political.

This story was about a boy whose father is a billionaire. and how being rich and being fat has stopped him being able to make friends. So he starts a new school where nobody knows he is rich and where he is not the fattest boy in school.

It's funny and emotional. It covers bullying and shows how important friendship and being a part of something is, as well as about how money doesn't necessarily bring happiness, and definitely how you can't buy friendship or love.

The things that let this down a little for me personally, was how many British cultural references like names of products (sweets/newspapers) and terminology needed explaining. There was an assumption that everyone reading this would know what they were. Mr Walliams is not considering a wider international audience. And also every now and then going off on a tangent away from the story to say something funny. It distracted from the story and the pace.

Otherwise a fun read ( )

Once upon a time, a little boy called Joe had a father who worked in a shop where he made loo-rolls - wrapped them round the tubes, round, all day long. He soon made his own loo-roll - Bumfresh (I can't remember the proper name, but I think it's Bumfresh). The young man sold them through and out the world - even the Queen bought one. He soon became rich, rich, rich, rich - very rich.

Mr Spud (Joe's father) soon broke up with his wife, and lived in a massive house with his son. Joe soon moved schools, and found a friend there called Bob. He made wonderful friends with him - until one day, a new girl called Lauren came, and this made Joe have a girlfriend straight away. When finally Bob found out, he and Joe fell out...

It turns out that because all Joe wanted was a friend, Mr Spud had bought Lauren to be his son's friend - Lauren was pretending to like Joe, and all went fine until one day when Joe tried to kiss Lauren.

Weirdly, it also turned out that Lauren was an actress, plus she was hanging out with another boy the other day.

When Joe found out, he made friends with Bob again, kicked Lauren out of his life and went to live with Bob. But why do that then stay in a massive house with about a thousand rooms? Well, you'll have to wait and see! ;)

This book was great, funny, amazing, sad, lovely and most of all: FUN. David Walliams must be rich by the amount of amazing books he's sold!! ( )

Un nen de dotze anys, el més ric del món, no té amics.

Rolig med en stor snudds allvar, precis som alla David Walliams böcker. Joe Spudd är pojken som har allt man kan köpa bland annat en krokodil, en skateboardpark och inte minst en formel 1-bil. Fast det finns en sak som han saknar, som tyvärr inte går något vidare att köpa för pengar, nämligen en vän. I ett försök att ändra på det slutar Joe gå till den svindyra snofsiga privatskolan där alla tycker det är vulgärt att pappans pengar kommer från toapapperstillverkning och börjar istället på en kommunal skola i närheten. Det blir problem, så klart. Inte minst för att Joe inte vet hur man är med vanliga barn, utan inte minst eftersom han råka vara tjock utan större atletiska talanger.

Roligt, skruvat med ett budskap. De underbara illustrationerna av Tony Ross förstärker den Roald Dahlska känslan. Prefekt som läsa själv-bok. ( )