How to be a kid boss by Larry Hayes

Larry Hayes, the author of How to Survive Time Travel, How to Survive the Future and How to Survive Without Grownups has written another fun and interesting fact book for younger readers. How to be a Kid Boss has a total of 101 secrets and tips for children to outsmart the adults in their lives.

The contents page clearly lists all of the ‘How To…’ statements and the reader can either begin at the beginning or browse through to topics that are of interest. One of the chapters that children will love is ‘How to train your parents (like a performing seal)’ where there are clearly labelled step by step instructions: 1 Choose your goal 2 Choose your reward 3 Ignore them 4 Big Praise. Other chapters sure to be big hits are ‘How to make ice cream so healthy you can eat it for breakfast’, ‘How to scare a grown-up (cheat method)', ‘How to get out of school’, ‘How to stop a grown-up looking at their phone all the time’ and the final chapter 101 ‘How to be a kid millionaire.’

Each chapter is clearly labelled and begins with an ‘Everybody Knows’ segment, then the secret is divulged, this is either followed by further information, with all chapters ending with ‘Put it to the test’. There are fun facts, cheat codes and warnings highlighted throughout the book. The factual content shared is full of humour and the graphic style images cleverly separate and complement the text.

Themes: Children, Secrets, Tricks, Facts, Science, General Knowledge.

Kathryn Beilby