I Hate School

Another winning picture book from this highly successful author/artist partnership. This is a perfect text for Ross, giving him full reign to create all manner of ghastly characters and scenarios alongside Willis’ ghoulish and hilarious text, as related by Honor Brown, a schoolgirl who is a little inclined toward exaggeration in expressing her hatred of school. They say the Devil gets all the best tunes, and Willis certainly gives little Honor (with her red horns and tail) some pretty good laugh-aloud lines. Children will love Honor’s version of the horrors of school, and Ross’s version of the warty toad teacher is an absolute hoot. Ross also demonstrates how well illustration can work when the artist feels able to add his own little asides and visual jokes, something that he does liberally and to great effect in these pages. Author and artist are on top form here, interacting to great effect – one of their finest collaborations to date.