Pigsticks and Harold: Lost in Time
Pigsticks and Harold: Pirate Treasure
Alex Milway
Walker Books

With aspirations to become more like his brilliant inventor Great-aunt Ada Lovepig, Pigsticks is busy preparing for the Tuptown Science Fair – the ideal place to demonstrate his own inventive prowess. There’s a problem though; it’s the day of the competition and his entry for Best Invention is not going at all well, indeed it’s a mess.

But then Pigsticks comes upon a time machine left by said Great-aunt and he enlists a rather reluctant Harold, (fuelled by thoughts of yet to be invented cakes) to accompany him to the future where he’s certain they’ll discover how to build a real spaceship.

However, thanks to some hamfisted handling of the time lever at the start of their travels, the two find themselves not going forwards in time but hurtled way back for a scary encounter with dinopigs.

That though is only the start of their adventure: thereafter they slide straight into Cleopigtra, fall into a flaming London – ‘what’s so great about his fire?’ Harold asks; do a spot of dangling in New York City and bump into Julius Squealer before being captured by one Hamfrida, the Viking chief and her vicious minions.

It looks as though the end is nigh for our time travelling twosome; or, could cake perhaps be their salvation …

Fast paced and full of superbly silly moments, not to mention some very sticky ones, with its delicious wordplay this twisting, turning romp, the fourth of the hilarious Harold and Pigsticks series, is another winner for early chapter book readers especially.

Said readers will relish Alex Milway’s comical illustrations that are liberally scattered throughout the tale.

Another laugh out loud adventure of the two friends is:

Pigsticks and Harold: Pirate Treasure
In their third adventure, Tuptown is under threat from one Sir Percival Snout who claims their much-loved town belongs to him and what’s more, he has the paperwork to prove it. Or so he claims and he plans to destroy the entire town unless the pair can find a vast sum of money by the very next day.

Finding the three million pounds Pigsticks has so recklessly agreed to come up with is totally crazy since the pig is absolutely penniless.

Fortunately though Pigsticks then remembers that his great-great-grandpig was a pirate who’d left a legacy of treasure buried somewhere as yet to be discovered.

All the two friends need to do is to solve the riddle on the map his ancestor had left behind. With clues to follow, there’s little time to discover the whereabouts of that treasure and thus save Tuptown.

As always with these comic capers, there’s a wonderful final twist in the tale.

If your newly independent readers have yet to encounter Milway’s Pigsticks and Harold, I suggest starting at the beginning and binge reading the whole series from the start; those who already know the duo will delight in this cracking adventure.