Review: Horrid Henry's A-Z of Everything Horrid

Essential reading for Horrid Henry fans

This is an essential item for any Horrid Henry fan. Entries include people, places and things in Henry's world, all explained and rigorously cross-referenced. The layout is perfect for this age group: lots of white space, the familiar Tony Ross illustrations and relatively simple text.

I apologise for the teacher perspective (I can't help it, sorry), but aside from the fun value - and there is plenty of that - this volume would serve to introduce children to the idea of encyclopedias and similar reference books. It is well indexed, with the page numbers of entries in bold and other mentions in normal type, and the cross references are thorough and frequent. I can also see this being the first Horrid Henry book some young readers can access for themselves (perhaps if they're familiar with Henry from TV or being read to). It would definitely make a superbly rewarding book for such a reader, with most entries being only one to three sentences.

A great book to dip into, this would be a fab gift for Horrid Henry fans. It certainly delighted my youngest, who spent ages flicking through and reading random entries, as well as following some of the cross references. I'm sure it's a volume that will stand a lot of revisiting, making it good value (especially in this paperback edition).

From the back cover:

The ESSENTIAL guide to everything in Horrid Henry's utterly wicked world.

A is for April Fool's Day, Horrid Henry's favourite day of the year (except his birthday, of course.)
B is for Bogey Babysitter, Rabid Rebecca, the toughest teen in town.
C is for Comfy Black Chair, the best place to watch TV.

From the Purple Hand to pink frilly knickers; supersoakers to Sour Susan; football fiends to fizzywizz drinks - this book has it all and more. An encyclopedia of absolutely EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about Horrid Henry.

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Published 13 Sept by Orion Children's
My grateful thanks to the publishers for sending us a review copy
Check it out: Amazon UK