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car, being in the

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang IAN FLEMING

It takes the patience of a saint to drive long distances while keeping up a constant patter intended to cajole, deflect, divert and absorb the passengers in the back seat – especially when said passengers in the back seat are keeping up a constant patter of the ‘Are we there yet?’, ‘I’m so bored!’ and ‘Why do we have to go there anyway?’ variety. Alternatively, it takes an audiobook. See our lists of The Ten Best Audiobook Series for Long Car Journeys that follows, and The Ten Best Audiobooks for All the Family.

Grown-ups still angling for sainthood might like to add a group reading of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang to their pre-journey prep. As well as being the creator of 007’s spike-producing, missile-firing vehicles, Fleming was also responsible for coming up with the children’s equivalent. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is the sort of car that gets kids thinking about cylinders, pistons, flashing lights, horns – and all the things a modified car might be able to do.

Commander Caractacus Pott, eccentric inventor and father to eight-year-old twins Jeremy and Jemima, can finally afford to buy a family car after making the best-selling Crackpot Whistling Candy (a sweet that cleverly turns into a whistle). The old, twelve-cylinder racing car has seen better days, but after several weeks spent doing her up in the garage, he rolls her out for the family to admire. Jeremy and Jemima fall in love with the big round headlights immediately – and the horn that makes a ‘deep, polite’ and ‘threatening’ roar. Strangely, some of the instruments on the dashboard seem to have appeared by themselves . . . No matter: two loud backfires later, the car is charging at full pelt down the motorway.

This being England, they’re soon stuck in traffic and both car and passengers start to overheat. Just then, a sign saying ‘Pull’ lights up on the dash. The Commander hesitates, not knowing what it will do, but then the sign changes to ‘Pull idiot!’ and he obeys. Lo! the mudguards swivel out, and back . . . and . . . well, you know the rest. Experienced as Fleming originally wrote it, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang will inspire your passengers to bring their imaginations – and hand-made buttons, levers and wings – on board to vamp up the family wheels. The driving experience will never be the same again.¹

THE TEN BEST AUDIOBOOK SERIES FOR LONG CAR JOURNEYS

The Famous Five ENID BLYTON, READ BY JAN FRANCIS

How to Train Your Dragon CRESSIDA COWELL, READ BY DAVID TENNANT

Skulduggery Pleasant DEREK LANDY, READ BY RUPERT DEGAS

Chronicles of Ancient Darkness MICHELLE PAVER, READ BY SIR IAN MCKELLEN

His Dark Materials PHILIP PULLMAN, READ BY THE AUTHOR

Harry Potter JK ROWLING, READ BY STEPHEN FRY

A Series of Unfortunate Events LEMONY SNICKET, READ BY TIM CURRY

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings JRR TOLKEIN, READ BY ROB INGLIS

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy DOUGLAS ADAMS, READ BY STEPHEN FRY

The Maze Runner JAMES DASHNER, READ BY MARK DEAKINS

SEE ALSO: bored, being • sick, being

care, being taken into

SEE: foster care, being in

carer, being a

SEE: unwell parent, having an

carrots, refusing to eat your peas and

SEE: fussy eater, being a

cast-offs, having to wear

Old Hat New Hat STAN AND JAN BERENSTAIN

Pigeon English STEPHEN KELMAN

Inculcate affection for pre-loved clothes – baggy-kneed, broken-zipped, and secreting dubious things in the corners of their pockets – with Old Hat New Hat. In this story, the Berenstain bear we know and love tries on every weird and wonderful hat in the shop, from the turban to the one with the propeller on top. Then he spies a tatty old trilby with a patch and a drooping daisy. It’s the one he came in with, of course. Old is so the best.

It’s harder to convince older kids that wearing second-hand clothes is cool, but perhaps not impossible. Set on a council estate in Peckham, Pigeon English tells the story of Harri, a young Ghanaian immigrant trying to make his way in the local gang culture. ‘Have you got happiness?’ they ask him. ‘Yes!’ ‘Have you got happiness?’ ‘Yes!’ By the time he finally gets what they’re saying,² his street cred has taken a bashing. But how can he ever hope to climb back up the ladder when his mother buys him cast-off trainers at the charity shop?

It gradually dawns on Harri that it’s what’s inside his trainers that he should be focusing on: a natural athlete, he can run faster than any of his peers. This moving story speaks to kids about many issues, including immigration (see: outsiders, distrust of), bullying (see: bullied, being) and peer pressure (see: peer pressure). But in the end it’s about seeing things in perspective. Acknowledge with the kids of your ken that it sometimes feels crucial to be seen wearing the right things. But that it’s even more crucial to keep their eye on the bigger picture.

SEE ALSO: peer pressure • things, wanting • worrying

celebrity, wanting to be a

The Strongest Girl in the World (Magical Children) SALLY GARDNER

Rockoholic CJ SKUSE

With the current rash of TV talent shows, kid-hosted YouTube channels and the measuring of popularity by the number of likes and followers one has, it’s hardly surprising that modern children angle for celebrity status. The Strongest Girl in the World shows that hitting the big time doesn’t necessarily lead to contentment. When a friend gets his head stuck between the school railings (see: stuck), eight-year-old Josie discovers she has the power to bend metal. Experimenting with her new-found capabilities, she finds she can also lift tables, people, and even a double-decker bus. It doesn’t take long for someone to spot her money-spinning potential, and she and her family are soon being whisked off to New York by the sleazy Mr Two Suit to find fame and fortune. They find it; but, after much excitement, sensible Josie decides she’d rather live a quiet, happy life after all. Readers will love Josie’s adventurous spirit – and her ultimate choice.

An eye-opening exploration of celebrity from both the idol and the fan’s point of view is to be found in Rockaholic, in which teenage Jody is so obsessed with her rock idol, Jackson (from the fictional band The Regulators), that she’s listening to him on her headphones at her own grandfather’s funeral. When she kidnaps Jackson by accident – he having mistaken her Curly Wurly for a knife, no doubt as a result of the hallucinogens coursing through his veins – she and her best friend find themselves driving him to Jody’s house. The next thing she knows, her number-one fantasy man is unconscious in her bed, naked – and she’s washing him with baby wipes.

It turns out that Jackson loathes his fans and finds it pathetic that they spend their hard-earned cash on his concert tickets. In fact, he pours so much vitriol on Jody’s dream that she’s moved to push him off a bridge. No sooner has she done so than she has the dubious epiphany that if she can only help Jackson detox from the ‘blackberries’ he takes, he might turn out to be the god she imagined him to be after all . . . Thus begins the hilarious account of Jackson’s descent into the troughs of normality, which sees him being transported in a wheelie bin to Grandpa’s converted garage, going through cold turkey and being fed meals by Jody through the cat flap. High comedy, yes; but this story also sheds touching light on the topsy-turvy life of a fan, how much their gods mean to them, and how sometimes it takes a serious dose of life (and death) to help someone see what was staring them in the face all along.

SEE ALSO: precociousness • princess, wanting to be a • spoilt, being

chatterbox, being a

Little Miss Chatterbox ROGER HARGREAVES

A great number of challenging personality traits can be slipped into a conversation with a child via the relevant Hargreaves character.³ From being messy to being scatterbrained, from being lazy to being mischievous – you name it, there’s a Mr Man (or, now, a Little Miss) whose raison d’être is to model that feature and invite a discussion about it. One of our favourites for curative purposes is Little Miss Chatterbox, the sister of Mr Chatterbox. If Mr Chatterbox can talk the hind leg off a donkey, Little Miss Chatterbox can talk all forty-two legs off a centipede.⁴ In the course of this story, she gets fired from four jobs – bank teller, waitress, hat shop attendant and secretary – for talking too much; and, one by one, Mr Happy, Mr Greedy, Little Miss Splendid and Mr Uppity are all left in a state of shell-shocked silence. The job she finally gets (we won’t spoil the surprise) is exactly the sort of brain-numbing punishment we would wish for her – except that she doesn’t notice it’s a punishment at all. The chatterbox in your midst will surely notice how unhappy the other characters become in this story, and with luck – ahem – they’ll not notice how pleased you look when they stop talking to read it.

SEE ALSO: questions, asking too many

cheering up, needing

Guess How Much I Love You SAM MCBRATNEY, ILLUSTRATED BY ANITA JERAM

Winnie-the-Pooh AA MILNE, ILLUSTRATED BY ERNEST H SHEPARD

After tears, there needs to be comfort. Guess How Much I Love You – a book more or less guaranteed to get a grown-up choked up, which is in itself a comforting spectacle for a child – is our favourite picture book for the job. Little Nutbrown Hare, ‘who was going to bed’, wants his Big Nutbrown Hare to guess how much he loves him – then tries to show him how much by spreading his arms as wide as he can. Of course, Big Nutbrown Hare can make his arms go wider, and his feet go higher; and as they continue to try and out-big the other with the size of their love, we get to see Little Nutbrown’s quivering whiskers and eager little tail take it all in: ‘“Hmm, that is a lot,” thought Little Nutbrown Hare.’ With their soft, white tummies and their delicate, worn-looking ears, these hares are about as irresistible as children’s book characters get – and the quiet rhythm of the prose will soothe and lull. That Little Nutbrown Hare never gets to hear the true extent of Big Nutbrown Hare’s love introduces your child to the gratifying concept that sometimes a grown-up’s love is just too big to describe.

Children who have, in some way, brought their upset on themselves will feel much better for getting to know Winnie-the-Pooh, loved as he so evidently is despite – and even because of – his foolishness. When Pooh gets stuck in the entrance to Rabbit’s burrow, he only has himself to blame. Full of the honey and condensed milk he wolfed down at Rabbit’s, without even having been invited to breakfast in the first place, his girth is now greater than the front entrance of the burrow. With his ‘North end’ poking into the woods, and his ‘South end’ still in Rabbit’s kitchen, he’s unable to move either in or out.

At first, Pooh tries to pretend there’s nothing wrong – that he’s ‘just resting and thinking and humming’ to himself. Then he gets cross and tries to lay the blame on someone or something else – in this case, Rabbit’s front door for not being wide enough. Sensibly, Rabbit doesn’t argue, but goes to fetch Christopher Robin – the equivalent of a grown-up in these stories. Christopher Robin gently chides Pooh for being a ‘Silly old Bear’, but in ‘such a loving voice’ and with such complete acceptance of his friend’s follies that everybody feels ‘quite hopeful again’ straight away.

It’s Rabbit who suggests they read aloud to Pooh while waiting for his stomach to deflate (although, ever the opportunist, he also suggests that he use Pooh’s back legs as a towel rail while he’s there). His kind suggestion (or perhaps it’s the prospect of no meals for a week) tips Pooh over the edge and, a tear rolling down his cheek, he asks to be read a ‘Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness’.¹⁰ If you respond to a child’s upset in much the same way as Christopher Robin does – gently chiding but in a loving voice and showing you love them just as they are – you’ll do a good job of cheering them up. Then choose the ‘Sustaining Book’ with this story in it – or one of our laugh-inducing reads in the list that follows.

THE TEN BEST BOOKS TO MAKE YOU LAUGH OUT LOUD

My Friend’s a Gris-Kwok MALORIE BLACKMAN, ILLUSTRATED BY ANDY ROWLAND

Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers JOHN DOUGHERTY, ILLUSTRATED BY DAVID TAZZYMAN

The Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Dog JEREMY STRONG, ILLUSTRATED BY NICK SHARRATT

Arabel’s Raven (Arabel and Mortimer) JOAN AIKEN, ILLUSTRATED BY QUENTIN BLAKE

The Legend of Spud Murphy EOIN COLFER

Hoot CARL HIAASEN

You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum! ANDY STANTON, ILLUSTRATED BY DAVID TAZZYMAN

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl JESSE ANDREWS

‘. . . Startled by his Furry Shorts?’ (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson) LOUISE RENNISON

Fangirl RAINBOW ROWELL

CURE FOR GROWN-UPS

Lost and Found OLIVER JEFFERS

Of course, when a child is upset, you need to find out what the matter is, too. This is easier said than done. When the boy in Lost and Found finds a dejected penguin at his door, he wants to help. But he jumps to the premature conclusion that the creature needs taking back to the South Pole and the penguin doesn’t know how to explain that it’s something else. When they get there, the penguin is even sadder than he was before. Think of this silently suffering penguin when you’re faced with an upset child and don’t rush the diagnosis stage.

SEE ALSO: spoilt, being

chores, having to do

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer MARK TWAIN

Mrs Piggle-Wiggle BETTY MACDONALD

Chores are a bore as far as kids are concerned, especially when they could be lounging around doing nothing or building a den in the woods. When Tom Sawyer is confronted with the vast acres of Sahara-brown fencing that he must whitewash one Saturday morning, all joy drains from him. Then along comes Ben Rogers, impersonating a steamer and looking like he’s about to make fun of Tom for his unenviable task. That’s when Tom has his master-stroke of ingenuity. Instead of bemoaning his plight, he makes the job sound appealing. ‘Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?’

Soon Ben is begging Tom to let him have a go – even giving him his apple for the privilege. By the end of the afternoon, Tom has earned himself twelve marbles, ‘part of a jew’s-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn’t unlock anything . . . a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye’ (and that’s only some of the things) from other children eager to share the job. More importantly, he’s been able to spend the day watching other people do his work. The definition of work, he realises, is what you’re obliged to do, while play is what you want to do. Let Tom’s example be an inspiration to all grown-ups when trying to get kids to muck in.⁶

For younger children, your go-to woman is Mrs Piggle-Wiggle, the inspirational quasi-witch who has been more or less single-handedly training American kids to be good, responsible citizens since the late 1940s. A batty woman with a hump and hair down to her knees, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle has a way with kids, and all the local parents send their offspring to her whenever they need curing of being a slow eater or of answering back. She takes a similar approach to Tom Sawyer on the subject of chores, ensuring that children want to do them rather than feel they have to. There are several books in this series, and you’ll find a great cure for being a show-off in Hello, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle (which comes with illustrations by the great Hilary Knight), while Mrs Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm (with illustrations by Maurice Sendak) contains an excellent cure for children who neglect their pets. Give them to a child to read – or read them yourself and take notes.

SEE ALSO: cook, reluctance to learn to • job, wanting a Saturday • laziness • pocket money, lack of • told, never doing what you’re

cigarettes

SEE: peer pressure

clinginess

SEE: confidence, lack of • grow up, not wanting to

clumsiness

Clifford the Big Red Dog NORMAN BRIDWELL

Redwall BRIAN JACQUES

All kids start out clumsy – just watch a three-year-old trying to pour milk on their breakfast cereal if you’re in any doubt. Clifford, the big red dog, is clumsy too in a wet-nosed, incompetent way which stems partly from his being the size of a house, and partly from an over-abundance of zeal. A kind and affable creature with big, cartoony eyes, Clifford never means to make a mess. But when he digs a hole, he can’t help uprooting an entire tree. And when he chases a car, he can’t help coming back with the whole vehicle clamped between his jaws. The fact that Clifford’s owner Emily Elizabeth loves her pet however inadvertently destructive he is,⁷ is what makes these books reassuring as well as fun.

For older readers who still can’t seem to look where they’re going, Matthias, the young mouse-hero of Redwall – the first of an engrossing, twenty-two-book-long series about the inhabitants of an ancient abbey – is forever doing clumsy things when we first meet him. Flip-flopping around in sandals that are too big for him, he trips over his words as well as his feet: ‘Er, sorry, Father Abbot . . . Trod on my Abbot, Father Habit.’ The Abbot can see that this bungling young mouse has something special about him – and when the mice and their faithful badger Constance have to defend themselves against the evil one-eyed rat, Cluny the Scourge, and his army of vermin, it is Matthias the mice look to for leadership. Matthias’s clumsiness hasn’t left him by the end of this story: he still manages to go sprawling over a tree root when rushing back for his final showdown with Cluny. But by then it’s a sign of his eagerness to do battle, too. Youngsters who suffer from this ailment might take note of the Abbot’s advice and move through life a little more slowly. Or they can notice how endearing Matthias’s clumsiness makes him and embrace theirs, too.

SEE ALSO: adolescence • lose things, tendency to

cold, having a

SEE: adventure, needing an • cheering up, needing

coming out

SEE: gay, not sure if you are

concentrate, inability to

SEE: fidgety to read, being too • short attention span

confidence, lack of

Tar Beach FAITH RINGGOLD

Whether they’ve been overshadowed, undermined, ground down by criticism – or never seemed to have any in the first place – children suffering from a lack of confidence need an exhilarating metaphor that helps them break free, and the encouragement to believe in themselves. They’ll find both in Tar Beach, a story inspired by the author’s memories of lying on the roof of her family’s apartment in Harlem on hot summer nights.

While her parents play cards with the neighbours, eight-year-old Cassie Louise Lightfoot rises up into the sky. The only witness to the girl’s magical flight is her baby brother, Be Be, ‘lying real still on the mattress, just like I told him to’. The simple, bold illustrations, reminiscent of Chagall, draw us into Cassie’s imagination as she soars over the George Washington Bridge, beyond the skyscrapers and up to the stars. Up here, she feels like everything she can see belongs to her – including the new Union building, which her father is helping to build but can’t belong to because he’s ‘colored, or a half-breed Indian, like they say’ – and in a way it does. Along the bottom of each page we see the stitched-together squares of the original quilt made to tell this story, a craft handed down to Ringgold from her southern ancestors.

With its legacy of slavery and discrimination, the metaphor of flying from one’s constraints packs a mighty punch. Cassie tells Be Be that he can do it, too – but first he has to want to go somewhere: ‘I have told him it’s very easy, anyone can fly. All you need is somewhere to go that you can’t get to any other way.’ Encourage an unconfident child to imagine doing whatever it is they wish they could do. Believing they can do it is the first step. Once they believe that they can, they will.