Peng and Spanners – When Pigs Go Bad! Written by Steve Webb. Reviewed by Rory, Age 8

If you think penguins and cats can’t be friends, then think again because Peng the penguin and Spanners the cat are exactly that. But they are slightly different. Peng likes adventures and Spanners likes inventing. When Peng is surprised he says ‘wowzers, wowzers, baggy trousers!’ Weird right?

There’s another important character you need to know about. Mr Big. He is an evil pig that lives in a shed on top of a tall building and he has no other friends because the other pigs only talk about staplers. Which is BORING! Mr Big is very silly because his only friend is a cactus called Pinhead. Peng and Spanners have lots of fun before he turns up.

I like this book because it is fun, colourful and it has some good characters. Like the janitor at Peng’s school who is called Cinderella Buckles. She has the rule book of the school and rule 367 is ‘no laughing in school’. I mean that is bonkers. I have also noticed that in this book Peng always says ‘shut up’ when Spanners is annoying him. Rude right?

The trouble starts when Mr Big goes to Peng’s school, follows him into his secret hideout and steals Peng’s secret business – some cool gadgets and a robot sausage dog. I thought that would be useless but Mr Big uses the robot dog to unlock doors and to fly. I mean …wow!

Mr Big is very clever using his stolen gadgets because he uses his laser hat then leaves it on the floor so people think it was Peng and Spanners who did the crime. This works because the hat has ‘Peng and Spanners’ written on it. At one point in the book Mr Big steals the Mona Lisa but then he calls the painting ‘Miss Moody” Funny huh? One of my favourite bits was Squirrel News. One of the news reporters is actually called Cliff Hanger! It’s true, look on the back of the book.

Squirrel news is so funny and when I say that I actually mean Kirsty Claptrap, the newsreader is funny. There’s also a police officer called Officer Klues and the funny thing is that his dog is called Crisp Packet. Steve Webb (the author and illustrator) has made up some real strange names in this book, huh? I love the pictures, they are so colourful and sometimes even the words are colourful too. I like the pictures because sometimes they actually come out of the boxes.

I think this book will be chosen by kids who like funny things and superheroes. I give this book 5 stars.