18,000 holes in the universe by Adam Wallace and Lisa Foley. Illus. by James Hart

Friends Jordie, Noah (twins), Mags and Marko are concerned that the twins' inventor grandfather, Golf’s empty house is in danger of being demolished. The twins’ mother has fond memories of the house and they decide to go in and find something for her to keep to remember her father, who disappeared 20 years ago. His nasty brother, Goof, wants to demolish it as soon as Golf is declared legally dead without a will. The friends encounter bully Felicity in the house smashing things up, then a glowing golf ball flies from under a floorboard wrapped in a message from Golf. The friends follow the clues to a mini golf green in the overgrown garden, a gateway to another dimension. There is plenty of action, and it turns out Felicity knows a lot about golf and helps them work out the clues, and to help the reader there is a glossary of golf terms at the end of the book. The friends battle dragons, trying not to take their eyes off the ball and there is plenty of gross humour with poo, snot and fart jokes throughout. Cartoon illustrations take up about half of most pages with lots of bold words to break up the text. I didn’t like the name calling or the fact that it was the short fat kid who farted all the time and was constantly apologizing to his friends but this does come from the creators of Fartboy, (Fartboy:The first sniff). Particularly irritating was the character wearing headphones for no apparent reason but this too may relate to a previous series. This is number 1 in the golfing series so maybe the characters will evolve and there will be many more rounds of golf to come.

Themes: Adventure, Golf, Humour.

Sue Speck