In a nutshell: fun, illustrated stories, that neatly sidestep the elephant of truth | Readers of all ages are going to love Sam Lyttle, star of Joe Berger’s new series. Well-intentioned, Sam can’t help but get into scrapes and generally finds it just, well, simpler to tell a lie to keep everyone happy than admit the truth. It’s a strategy that often makes things worse, but results in some highly entertaining adventures. Berger tells his stories in a mix of text and cartoon illustrations, both of which are direct, immediately engaging and really very funny indeed; Sam’s illustrated description of skirting the elephant of truth on his skateboard is particularly wonderful. There are five different but interlinked stories in the book, making it a particularly accessible read.
James Patterson’s series Middle School series also successfully mix cartoons into entertaining, zany but realistic stories of adolescent life. Barry Hutchison’s Beaky Malone books have fun with ideas of the importance of truth and lies. ~Andrea Reece
Sam is a habitual liar. He would rather skirt the truth, and avoid trouble, than be completely honest. However, he soon finds out that in trying to avoid trouble, not telling the truth gets him in to all sorts of scrapes! His Mum, Dad, Sister and Grandpa would like him to be more honest - but will Sam ever learn?
Selected as a Booktrust Best New Illustrator of 2011.
Joe Berger grew up in Bristol, where he did an Art Foundation at Bower Ashton. He then worked as a freelance illustrator for a large number of international magazines and newspapers, self-publishing comic books, illustrating and designing book covers, making award-winning animated shorts, title sequences and commercials and, since May 2003, co-writing and drawing a weekly comic strip in The Guardian. He continues to freelance, and his first picture book, Bridget Fidget, was published by Puffin. Most recently he has illustrated Dot by Randy Zuckerberg and Superhero Dad by Timothy Knapman. Joe was World Book Day illustrator in 2010, and collaborated with Frank Cottrell Boyce on his three sequels to Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. All the Lies I’ve Ever Told, a comic novel for 8-12 year olds, will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2017.
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