Unstoppable Max

It’s Max’s bedtime, and mum says he has five minutes to get ready by tidying his room, putting on his pyjamas, and feeding his goldfish.  This is a tall order for Max, and, ‘unstoppable’ as he is, he really doesn’t want to finish playing.  He must put on his ‘thinking hat’ to decide what to do.  His thoughts aren’t terribly practical:  should he do something sensible, something naughty, or something crazy?  In the end, he does none of those things and comes up with other solutions.  Mum doesn’t see his ploys and seems to think he has done well when she comes back, but what will happen when he is told to brush his teeth!  The illustrations for this story are clever and fun, but I have a problem with the text.  My first read-through was confusing, the second not much better, and it took several others to see the whole point of the story.  I doubt whether young children will find the story understandable without a lot of repetitions and explanations.  It may be a book that ends up in the back of the cupboard rather than a dog-eared old favourite, and that would be a pity.  Max is only ‘unstoppable’ in the sense that he isn’t keen about going to bed, but then what child is?  He does stop to think about how to solve his three requests from mum, and his solutions are clever and sometimes unique, but they don’t make him unstoppable.  I’m sorry to be negative about a story that has much to commend it, but it needs some work to make it clearer.