I Am Reading: The Cheat Book (1 & 2) by RAMZEE
| Publisher: | Hachette Children's Group |
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| Publish date: | 6 June 2024 |
Kamal has a lot of problems. He's uncool, his friends are uncool, his three sisters form a terrifying monster intent on destroying him, the school bully wants to flatten him, and he's just thrown up over the head teacher. In assembly. In front of the whole school.
To make matters worse, a new popularity app is doing the rounds, and Kamal can't even score zero. But suddenly a mysterious book appears, offering to show him the secrets to everything he needs. How to get out of trouble. How to persuade his parents to give him money. How to become popular…
Like The Double Life of Ted Amos, The Cheat Book says a lot about what it means to be popular. But it's also a silly romp through Kamal's life as he tries to work his way up to the fabled Cool Table. Is the Cheat Book really helping him? Or is it making things worse?
The humour is fast-paced and chaotic, the books are heavily illustrated (by RAMZEE), and the eventual message heartwarming. But I particularly loved the character of Kamal himself. Kamal is a Somali refugee, and that's a big part of his life – from the other characters he meets at prayer, to the food he eats at home, to the advice from his imam, and to Raqib and Atid, the two angels who sit at his shoulders and record his good and bad deeds. (They pop in like guest stars, worrying or gloating as his good/bad deeds pile up)
RAMZEE does a brilliant job of making Kamal's background part of the story, without it being the story. Kamal is just a kid, like any other kid. OK, he has a magic cheat book that makes him class president, but apart from that…
Volume Two is just as much fun, this time involving a school camp, a mysterious monster, and more chaos. In fact, RAMZEE sneaks a bit of actual fun facts into this one (want to know how to tell which way is north in a forest? Or whether unicorns are Halal? Read this book!). And they're both very easy to read, with a great conversational style. Book 3 is on the way!
(Many thanks to Hachette for sending me a copy of these books!)