The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, by David Almond

After picture books and early readers, kids are ready for more meaty books that are much less reliant on pictures. We’ve tried a few and ‘The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas‘ has been a huge hit with my oldest, Jude. So today, for the first time he has provided a short review of why he liked the book. Then I’ll let you know why I liked it. 

Why did Jude like this book? (as typed by the boy himself – no edits)

The boy who swam with piranhas was a very good book.It told you all about being what YOU want to be.Don’t copy any body because it probably won’t be what you want to do.A boy went through a hard life.If you copy somebody that somebody might not like it either.

Why did I like ‘The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas’?

Because it took my kid longer that one sitting to read.

Jude has tasted a fair few of the popular series and authors for a kid his age: The Bad Guys, WeirDo, The Treehouse series, How To Train your Dragon, Billie B Brown and Hey Jack, Geronimo Stilton, Captain Underpants, Tom Gates, Wimpy Kid…you get it. While he has loved all of these he can whip through a graphic novel quite quickly. He once brought home a WeirDo from school and finished it before bedtime. He also read an entire episode of The Bad Guys in the 13 mins it took to drop his sister at kinder and then take him to school. This is why I have stopped buying him novels. All of these books are readily available at the school or public library, and I can’t be spending $40 a week buying him books.

Seeing him hooked on a book that took him more than a day to finish was awesome. He took on it car trips and netball games because he wanted to keep reading and finish it.

It’s also really nice to see that he understood the moral lesson of the storyline – to always be yourself- without help. As I only got to read a couple of pages of the book myself, I had no ability to help him think about the characters and story. It’s lovely to know he can pick up the overall themes.