Licence to Rock: Jawsome 2

Finley, Hunter, Gilleon and Gnash are ordinary school sharks by day, but at night they take up their other identities as the worldwide sensation rock band Jawsome. Strange things are happening, however, as first they must face the evil A.B.B.A (Alliance of Brutally Bad Angler Fish) agents and then some zombies in this two-part story.

The first thing you need to know is that this is very silly and very funny. So many plays on words - the band are going to play at Euro-fishin, and they are in the Fin-nes Book of Records make this a very humorous romp through the seas! I did wonder if children would find some of it as funny as I did with celebrity bands , sorry shell-ebrity bands, such as Swim Shady and MC Hammerhead. The jokes keep coming and I'm not sure how the author managed to think of so many spectacular word plays!

Licence to Rock is the second book in the Jawsome series but is a good standalone story with enough explanation of what has happened before to make it work very well. The two-part story makes it the sort of book you do not have to read in one go, though I cannot imagine most children wanting to put it down. The whole text is broken into small, manageable chapters and the illustrations are as entertaining as the text. The text itself is large, with lots of illustration and bold writing and exclamation marks.

It works perfectly as a book for younger readers, seven plus as well as being cool enough for older, less confident readers. I can see children fighting over this book and now need to buy the first book in the series for the school library.

272 pages / Reviewed by Jacqueline Harris, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 7+