Billionaire Boy

by David Walliams

Paperback, 2011

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Publication

HarperCollins Children's Books (2011), Paperback, 288 pages

Description

A hilarious, touching and extraordinary new fable from David Walliams, number one bestseller and one of the fastest growing children's author across the globe. Joe has a lot of reasons to be happy. About a billion of them, in fact. You see, Joe's rich. Really, really rich. Joe's got his own bowling alley, his own cinema, even his own butler who is also an orangutan. He's the wealthiest twelve-year-old in the land. But Joe isn't happy. Why not? Because he's got a billion pounds... and not a single friend. But then someone comes along, someone who likes Joe for Joe, not for his money. The problem is, Joe's about to learn that when money is involved, nothing is what it seems. The best things in life are free, they say - and if Joe's not careful, he's going to lose them all...… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member rata
good for a 7-9 year old in terms of school yard storyline about friendship and bullying. However this book does have mature themes that only an adult would understand (reading between the lines e.g pg 3 stunna!). I struggled to to find an angle of storyline to grip with and keep me engaged rather I
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hurriedly turn the pages and read this book in a night. I loved Boy in a Dress, but this book and Mr Stink are too weak for me.
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LibraryThing member Eloisef
I loved the area David Walliams decided to write about. I realy enjoyed the book and would recommend to any one.
LibraryThing member martensgirl
This book takes a lighthearted look at the value of wealth. There is sufficient toilet humour to keep children entertained!
LibraryThing member LaviniaRossetti
Once upon a time, a little boy called Joe had a father who worked in a shop where he made loo-rolls - wrapped them round the tubes, round, all day long. He soon made his own loo-roll - Bumfresh (I can't remember the proper name, but I think it's Bumfresh). The young man sold them through and out
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the world - even the Queen bought one. He soon became rich, rich, rich, rich - very rich.

Mr Spud (Joe's father) soon broke up with his wife, and lived in a massive house with his son. Joe soon moved schools, and found a friend there called Bob. He made wonderful friends with him - until one day, a new girl called Lauren came, and this made Joe have a girlfriend straight away. When finally Bob found out, he and Joe fell out...

It turns out that because all Joe wanted was a friend, Mr Spud had bought Lauren to be his son's friend - Lauren was pretending to like Joe, and all went fine until one day when Joe tried to kiss Lauren.

Weirdly, it also turned out that Lauren was an actress, plus she was hanging out with another boy the other day.

When Joe found out, he made friends with Bob again, kicked Lauren out of his life and went to live with Bob. But why do that then stay in a massive house with about a thousand rooms? Well, you'll have to wait and see! ;)

This book was great, funny, amazing, sad, lovely and most of all: FUN. David Walliams must be rich by the amount of amazing books he's sold!!
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LibraryThing member purplequeennl
I read this book to my 9yo son (English is his second language), and we enjoyed it more than Mr Stink, which was a little too political.

This story was about a boy whose father is a billionaire. and how being rich and being fat has stopped him being able to make friends. So he starts a new school
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where nobody knows he is rich and where he is not the fattest boy in school.

It's funny and emotional. It covers bullying and shows how important friendship and being a part of something is, as well as about how money doesn't necessarily bring happiness, and definitely how you can't buy friendship or love.

The things that let this down a little for me personally, was how many British cultural references like names of products (sweets/newspapers) and terminology needed explaining. There was an assumption that everyone reading this would know what they were. Mr Walliams is not considering a wider international audience. And also every now and then going off on a tangent away from the story to say something funny. It distracted from the story and the pace.

Otherwise a fun read
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Language

Original publication date

2010

Physical description

288 p.; 5.12 inches

ISBN

000737108X / 9780007371082

Other editions

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