Guest review: Hodgepodge: How to Make a Pet Monster by Lili Wilkinson, illustrated by Dustin Spence

Hodgepodge: How to Make a Pet Monster by Lili Wilkinson, illustrated by Dustin Spence book cover

Published by Allen & Unwin 6 July 2020

* Copy courtesy of Allen & Unwin *

Hodgepodge: How to Make a Pet Monster by Lili Wilkinson is a children's book for readers aged 7-10. Illustrated by Dustin Spence, my junior reviewers Sophie and James Harris were lucky enough to review an early copy. What's it about and what did they think?

Blurb

A fantastically readable, gloriously funny and highly collectable new junior fiction series.

I'm Artie. I'm eleven years old.
I do not believe in ghosts, or monsters.
I do believe in science.
I also believe that my step-sister Willow is kinda terrifying.

Willow and I found a weird old book in the attic of our new house. It's called the Big Boke of Fetching Monsters.
And it tells you how to make your own monster.
But that's impossible.

Carpe Librum junior reviewers inspired by Hodgepodge by Lili Wilkinson

Reviewers Sophie & James Harris
making a Hodgepodge together

You DEFINITELY can't make a monster, because MONSTERS DO NOT EXIST.

Sophie Harris (10 years old)

I read this book with my 7 year old brother James. I really enjoyed doing the voices of the characters and we had a really good laugh together. I found it easy to read, it is probably for the 7-8 year old bracket depending on their reading ability.

We pretended that we were making this into a movie, it was a lot of fun. I am looking forward to the next one. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars! (So….. secretly I really liked it too, but this is his review).

James Harris (7 years old)

I loved reading this book with my sister. I really enjoyed it. It was really funny and easy to understand the story. The main character Artie likes science and tries to cook up a Hobgoblin with his step sister Willow, but they get the recipe all wrong because they don’t have all the right ingredients. So they use what they can find and make a Hodgepodge monster instead (and he farts a lot!)

They have lots of adventures trying to keep Hodgepodge a secret from the adults! It made me laugh all the way to the end. I really can’t wait to read the next book – when they make the Flummox instead of a Phoenix!

I give it 4.5 Monsters on the Monster scale (that’s really good).

James & Sophie's Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★