Author: Anthony Buckeridge

Details: (c) Anthony Buckeridge; Pub 1969 Collins

Verdict: Hilariously funny, like all the Jennings books

Reasons for reading it: I was having a lazy Saturday when I couldn't even be bothered to play online, and wanted something completely effortless to read.

How it came into my hands: Library sale

I loved the Jennings books as a kid, and rereading this as an adult did not disappoint me. I was in tears of laughter through most of it, yet it never mocks its characters; the reader is very much on their side. What's really amazing is that even though I'm now more than twice Jennings' age, Our Friend Jennings drew me in so much that I could see the events from an eleven-year-old's perspective, and did not take the side of the teachers and adults, as I might have expected when rereading a children's book.

The humour is a bit samey in a way, relying over-heavily on a style of verbal humour that I can best describe as treating English sentences like crossword clues. But I love the outrageous slang and the silliness of the situations that Jennings and Darbishire keep getting into, and even the inevitability that things will turn out ok in the end somehow adds to the charm of the book. Yay Jennings!