John Larkin (text) and Rebecca Timmis (illustrator), Brittany & Co. Take on Paris, Larrikin House, April 2024, 213 pp, RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 978192280686
In his latest book, Brittany & Co. Take on Paris, John Larkin adopts a tongue in cheek tone and boards a roller coaster of laughs. The illustrator Rebecca Timmis gets on board too, and they team up for a joyride of improbability, absurdity, and craziness. The first line sets the scene to blast off. It’s not every day your mother is arrested for transporting a horse on the roof of her car. Hint. There are many hilarious bits, like Ms Tralala popping out her eyeball, to keep an eye on the four girls on their adventure to Paris. Another hint is the name of their school. It’s called the Superior Upper-Class Ladies College or SULC. This tells it all. You have to put on your improbability hat and board the ride. It’s fun.
We find out early that Brittany and her friends are horse crazy. When their headmistress, Ms Tralala, bans their actual horses from their extracurricular school horse club the inventive groups decide instead to compete in The First Inaugural International Hobby Horse Championships in Paris (TFIIHHCiP). They make real hobby horses with a stick to ride on. To raise money for their trip they attempt to sell radioactive chocolate crackles outside the local bookshop. With the help of Ms Tralala, who insists on joining them on their adventure, Brittany and Co. take on Paris. Paris had better watch out.
The endorsement by Jacqueline Harvey is a sign of the adventures that sprout from this book. Sharp and witty prose and one incredibly enormous nose – Brittany and Co take readers on an adventure like no other.
It is a book that girls and boys will laugh out loud.
Suitable for ages 8+
Reviewed by Susanne Gervay
