It all begins with an ant. Like the ant, Milo Kim is just hanging out alone outside on the footpath of his street. Milo doesn’t know how the
ant is feeling but he is BORED. When it reaches his BMX bike ramp, he decides to show off his jump skills. Sure it’s only an ant, and his ramp is a piece of wood and a couple of bricks, but Milo likes to imagine himself as his bike hero Extreme Steve.
He knows he’s kidding himself, and his jump is pathetic, but if not for the jump, he wouldn’t have found it. The money.
It’s just lying there. One hundred and five dollars! Two notes. One hundred. One five. This find changes everything for Milo. His mum says he should find the owner. Liz, his other mum, says Finders Keepers!
As Milo begins to ask the neighbours, they offer ideas of whose it could be. Milo has decided that $105 could buy a very nice evening with the girl he loves. But for that to happen he would actually have to finally speak to her on the school bus. There is a new kid (called Frog) in Milo’s street, and Frog has his own theories of where the money came from.
Throw in some more tween wisdom from kids at school and suddenly Milo is dealing with a Brazilian Jujitsu champion, furniture thieves, an escaped convict, and Russian spies. He wishes he’d never found the money in the first place!
From the author of the hilarious Funny Kid and Fart Monster books, this is the first in a new series. We meet Milo who is quiet and shy, and also missing his big brother Henry who has joined the military. Milo has a problem, and without Henry to ask he’s really not sure what to do. The other kids in his street have lots of advice and suggestions which spiral into the unthinkable, but maybe possible scenarios, inside the homes surrounding them.
I loved the way the problem grew bigger and bigger with the other kid’s input, and how their imaginations fed off each other, turning a problem into international proportions. The truth however was even better, and Milo’s developing courage heart-warming. The resulting bike ramp idea shows perfectly how far Milo has come, even though flying off the end goes well and disastrous at the same time.
A little different from the Funny Kid series, Bored reminds me of Jerry Spinelli’s style and middle-grade characters, in the way they get to know each other. They’ve never talked much, if ever before, but with a common goal, they problem solve and become friends without overthinking it.
Great read!
Author / Illustrator – Matt Stanton
Age – 8+
Read the first three Chapters here
Find Teachers Resources here
Read the next in the series – read a review (Click on the Cover)
(2022, Harper Collins, Family, Friendship, Growing up, Humour, Mystery, School, Series, Funny, Money, Missing big brother, New neighbour, School crush, Conundrum, Suspicion, Neighbourhood kids, Making friends, BMX Bike ramp, Boredom, Two Mums)