Review by Edna Hobbs
Diary of an Unteenager by Pete Johnson
Published by Barrington Stoke
Remember those promises you made to yourself, ‘When I’m an adult / parent/ teacher I’ll never…’? Well, Spencer has promised himself that when he turns 13 he’ll not become a teenager… but inevitably, he finds himself changing.
Diary of an (Un)Teenager is where his story starts and leads to his first kiss. In the sequel, Return of the (Un)Teenager asked for by fans, Spencer faces hoodies, hot babes and Facebook. For a boy who likes to get his comic collection into issue order and prefers wearing a smart orange jumper – knitted by his nan – to the school disco, this is no easy challenge.
Spencer’s torments are hilariously funny for us post teenage readers, but we’re not always laughing at our little hero, often at our own remembered anguishes. For the young reader it is Spencer’s apparent obliviousness to the social faux pas he is making and his disregard of peer pressure that gets the giggles going.
Pete Johnson is the unsung hero of entertaining writing that delights both the proficient and the reluctant reader. He has such a warm, humane sense of ridiculous humour that has you laughing in loud snorts just as you’re fighting tears of empathy. At the same time, his text is easy to read, written in bite sized chunks, often in diary format. The stories are fast paced, without being superficial.
I recommend this offering as a delightful read, but it’s actually all Pete Johnson’s writing that I urge you to introduce your students to in our quest to promote entertaining reading.
ISBN-10: 1842998390
ISBN-13: 978-18429983970