The Big Bazoohley

Peter Carey, author of the Booker prize winning Oscar and Lucinda, has produced his first children's book with this work of lavish and lurid fantasy. Sam Kellow is a nine-year-old maths prodigy, the son of a reckless gambler and a painter of magically detailed micro-paintings. When his parents book into an expensive hotel, Sam knows that they are down to their last few dollars and that his father is unlikely ever to hit the big bazoohley, or ultimate jackpot, that he has been chasing all his life. But then Sam gets locked out of his hotel room, and embroiled in a terminally tacky Perfecto Kiddo competition that promises to ease his family's debts. Beautifully written, tense with predicaments, and adorned with a teeming cast of atrociously authentic monstrosities, this is an excellent book for reading aloud or for recommending to fairly able readers.