bruno bouchet – Aussie Reviews

The Trouble With Sauce, by Bruno Bouchet

When Mannington High becomes out of control the principal, Mr Foster, says to just send disruptive students to his office. One by one the students become good learners and quiet class members. But things go bad when the children turn into learning obsessed zombies and Jonty, Prune and Nathaniel have to make things normal again.

This exciting tale, by Bruno Bouchet, of zombie children and mind controlling sauce will have you turning pages faster than you can say “The Trouble With Sauce.” A good book for primary school students aged 9-13.

The Trouble with Sauce, by Bruno Bouchet
ABC Books, 2009

This book can be purchased online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Captain Wetbeard, by Bruno Bouchet

‘It looks like lots of fun,’ Dad was trying to get Daniel and Emily excited about their adventure holiday.
‘It sounds lame,’ Emily yawned and looked out of the car window.
‘Don’t use that word, dear, it’s not nice,’ said their mother.
‘W’ever!’ Emily said.

Emily and Daniel are to spend a week at a holiday camp on a ship – the ‘Jolly Roger Pirate Adventure’. They are less thrilled than their parents who will spend the week at a luxury hotel. They arrive at the collection point on a beach and wait. They are collected by a pirate and his crew, but that’s about the only predictable part of their journey. The pirate has bad breath and a dripping wet beard, the parrot is called ‘Duckie’ and has no feathers. Even the crew don’t seem quite right. But Emily (confident and sophisticated) and Daniel (younger and a worrier) do have an adventure, even if it’s not quite the one the brochure led them to expect.

Captain Wetbeard, pirate, has a dicky back and likes to call his crew ‘scurvy brats’. Apart from being a recognisable pirate saying, it means he doesn’t really have to remember any names. He arrives at the beach when Emily and Daniel are due to be collected by Captain Funbeard for their week on ‘Jolly Roger’ and takes them to his ship instead. What follows rocks and rolls much like the ship at sea as Emily and Daniel find themselves in and out of trouble. The main characters in Captain Wetbeard are eleven and nine years old, but this story is likely to appeal to younger readers with its on- and off-board escapades. There’s also a hint in here that fun can sometimes be found in unexpected places. Recommended for mid-primary readers.

Captain Wetbeard, by Bruno Bouchet ill David Cox
ABC Kids 2008
ISBN: 9780733320705

This book can be purchased from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussireviews.

Dorothy's Rosy Tea Party, by Bruno Bouchet

Dorothy the Dinosaur wakes up full of excitement. Today, Henry the Octopus is coming around for a Rosy Tea party, and she can’t wait. First, though, there’s cake to bake and lots of cleaning to do. When the fairies – Clare, Larissa, Lucia and little Maria – arrive to help, Dorothy is delighted, but in all the fuss, Dorothy forgets to watch the cake, and it burns. Luckily, when Henry arrives, he comes with a gift for Dorothy – a delicious cake.

Dorothy’s Rosy Tea Party is a pretty pink book sure to appeal to little girls, especially fans or Dorothy and her friends, the Wiggles. Timed to coincide with the new Dorothy the Dinosaur television series, the story is beautifully presented with candy striped cover and endpapers, and chains of roses bordering every illustration.

Dorothy’s Tea Party, by Bruno Bouchet and Karen Carter
ABC Books, 2007

Lab Rats in Space, by Bruno Bouchet

‘Argh!’ he screamed as he saw a third hand appearing from behind his head. He stared at the hand and gently touched the fingers. He could feel the touch. He turned around as far as he could and saw an arm reaching from over his back. It was coming out of his body, from his own back, just above his bum. ‘No!’ he cried in horror at his third arm. ‘What have they done to me?’

Zed wakes to find he is in a cage in a laboratory. He has no memory of home or family, no memories at all. He, like many others, has been experimented on by the cruel and inventive Dr Xanax and his off-sider, Bumface. Zed has a third arm, Jay’s sneezes are diabolical, XL is a genius (if only he could talk), Dee has a hammer for a hand. Zed hatches a plan to escape, using Bumface’s swipe card. Zed and his new friends discover that escaping from their cages is just the beginning. They hitch a ride on a container transport spaceship to escape Xanax and begin a journey to discover how they came to be experiments for this madman.

Lab Rats in Space is a wild romp through outer space. Zed, although stunned to find he is sporting an extra arm, rallies quickly and begins to marshal his fellow lab rats. He’s impetuous and fallible, but rouses the others to action. Each of them has a special skill, some only partly realised in this novel. None know just what this skill is, or what it is for. With a central character who has snot powerful enough to destroy space invaders and another with tools for hands, there are laughs aplenty. The pace is fast and furious, sure to engage upper primary boys in particular. I suspect we’ve not seen the last of Zed and his mates.

Lab Rats in Space, by Bruno Bouchet
ABC Books 2007
ISBN: 9780733319655