Good Knight and Bad Knight and the Big Game

Berkeley Paggle and Godwin Paggle are cousins-they live in the same house as Godwin is looked after by Berkeley’s Mum and Dad. They are also knights and attend knight school. Berkeley often spends time in Godwin’s shadow as Godwin is always good at EVERYTHING but at the beginning of this story we find out that Berkeley vanquished a dragon in a rather ingenious way so has received celebrity status back at school. Instead of dreading the start of term Berkeley actually looks forward to it and his wishes come true and he gets to hang out with the ‘cool kids’.  They want him to play ‘bladder ball’ and join them in a league game against a rival team. However as he becomes absorbed with his new friends he starts to forget about his cousin Godwin and best friend Warrick. He doesn’t notice that Warrick is trying to use magic to bring back his missing father and sister and so things become a bit tricky for a while. The story is nicely tied up with all the plots coming together and the little knights are able to realise that they can all offer some of their talents in friendship together.

The layout of the book is appealing to young readers as there are full page pictures with text as overlay, smaller illustrations and some letters in different fonts. The book is more amusing if you already know about medieval times and understand some of the plays on words and modern versus medieval time activities. There’s a handy glossary with explanations of words such as mummers, chivalry, bubonic and privy. It is definitely more enjoyable if you have some understanding of the period of history and can make the link with things like wanting to ‘go and hang out on the battlements’, or meeting friends at the ‘wagon stop’ or ‘Bladderball was the most popular game in the kingdom’……

If there was a castle/knight topic in a classroom the book would be a really funny one to read aloud with a grown up just giving a bit of context too.