The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon

The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon is a very quirky and funny novel about a boy, Tom Gates, who loves drawing. The story is told in the first person by Tom. Tom writes about having band practice with his next-door neighbor Derek Fingle, and about Marcus Meldrew, a bully. Tom always makes up ridiculous excuses to get out of doing homework, sometimes even saying that aliens wanted to know more about the planet earth and taking his homework away. The illustrations are also marvelous. They do a wonderful job of showing how Tom feels about certain people.

Pichon has also written other books in this series. All the books tell stories about how Tom manages to illude his teacher, Mr. Fullerman’s eyes, which somehow, can see everything, and how well his band is going. One thing that really stands out from other books is the glossary. The glossary doesn’t have really complicated or hard words, it has words like biscuit (a cookie) or rank (terrible or bad). Liz Pichon is from the U.K., so for people in other places, she includes a glossary. This unique book is certainly a treat and great for children.