The Kid with the Amazing Head

Andrew Weldon

Puffin, 2016

100 pp.,pbk., RRP $A9.99

9780143309161

Steven wakes up one morning to find that he can make his head do anything he wants.  He can look like other people,  He can shove a piano up his nose. He could have a hundred eyes or look like other people.  He could even turn his ears into sails to make travel faster!  

But will he use this unique ability for good or for evil?  Will be and his friends Clever Trevor and  Small Paul catch bank robbers or be bank robbers?  

Mostly, Steven uses his power to amuse and amaze but one day the friends see a Missing Persons poster for Claire Blairey, daughter of Mary Blairey who was the inventor of the very popular Hairy Mary’s Scary Fairies and that give the three boys an idea…

Andrew Weldon is a cartoonists whose work has been in many well-known newspapers and is now carried over into this new book that is going to appeal to newly-independent readers who like stories about weird and wacky characters that are an integral mix of text and illustration.  If the concept alone isn’t funny enough there is a lot more humour embedded in the cartoons as the story unfolds and this encourages the reader to pay close attention to both.

I think this will be one of those books that takes off with the Year 1-4 boys and will be in hot demand (along with Clever Trevor’s Stupendous Inventions).

There is an interview with the creator about his cartooning career on ABC Rollercoaster which may be inspirational and aspirational for those who are constantly doodling.