Good Knight, Bad Knight and the Flying Machine
Tom Knight
Templar Publishing

As another term approaches for best friends Good Knight (Godwin) and Bad Knight (Berk), they are hard at work helping friends Warrick and his twin sister Willow fix up Pitchkettle Cottage when Warrick decides to speed things up with a touch of magic.

Suddenly things get just a tad out of hand and before you can say ‘daub’ there’s a gloopy mix of straw, clay and very pongy poo flying everywhere.

The next thing the siblings know is that they’re banned from spell making, hexed by their mum and they’re all made to spend the weekend clearing up the stinky, magic-induced mess.

Rather than achieve fame by being ‘the only wizard in the world who covers everything with poo’ as Willow teases, Warrick realises he needs another way to find fame.

Perhaps something he’s seen in Berk’s book with pictures of flying things might just do the trick (unfortunately written in Italian – a nod to Leonardo da Vinci there), something such as a flying machine for instance.

With the help of his friends and Willow (who seems to have focused much of her attention upon finding and taming the very large, very stinky dragon that harbours a rather large grudge), Warrick must to find a way to prevent any further disasters during his test flights.

All the more so when Godwin’s island is raided by Boog and his barbarians. Now a flying machine that actually stays airborne is vital.

Toss into all this the thoroughly unpleasant teacher Sir Dane, some tapestries that mysteriously go missing, a rather clever chicken and a couple of jars filled with fire beetles and what you have is a madcap Medieval romp to entertain young readers with a thirst for derring-do and riotous revenge. And it’s all brilliantly illustrated by Tom himself.

Moreover there’s a glossary at the end of the book explaining some delicious new words including ‘fopdoodle’, hoddypeak’, ‘fauntkins’ and I guarantee readers won’t be left ‘mubblefubbles’ having read this somewhat bonkers book.