A children’s novel in the David Walliams vein – but with real heart
In the wake of the phenomenal success of the likes of David Walliams – whose publisher claimed in 2022 that he had sold over 50 million books – anyone writing for younger children has come under pressure to be “laugh-out-loud” funny. Any publisher will tell you that seven-year-olds are more interested in jokes than in lyrical prose. On that front, Betty Steady and the Toad Witch, aimed at readers of seven to 10 and billed as “the funniest young-fiction debut of 2024”, ticks the commercial boxes.
Nicky Smith-Dale’s story is set long ago, in a time “between the invention of the laundry basket and the first panda in space”. Twelve-year-old Betty Steady lives in the village of Wobbly Rock, on the side of Mount Crumbledown. She’s as tall as a full-grown knight – “Rumour had it, her great-great-grandmother had been half giant and one-eighth ice-cream van” – and is blessed with supernatural strengths which she uses to protect Wobbly Rock from the “dribble dragons” and “battle-pigs” who periodically attempt to storm the castle walls. (“They’d always been trounced by Betty Steady.”)
But by the time the story begins, Betty has started getting too big for her boots – “I DON’T NEED NO STINKING HELP… RULES ARE FOR FOOLS!” – and when she strays into the clutches of the gruesome Toad Witch, she finds herself cut down to size by being shrunk to the height of a mouse. “Change me back NOW!” she protests. “I’m Betty Steady. I’m supposed to be tall. I’m supposed to be powerful and amazing.” Will Betty learn the value of teamwork, and escape in time to save Wobbly Rock from the Toad Witch and her dastardly army?
The story is narrated by the loquacious Salvador Catflap, who introduces himself as Wobbly Rock’s self-appointed chronicler. Catflap can’t resist authorial interventions – “Hang on… sorry. Salvador Catflap here” – and valiantly keeps up the larky tone: “Contained within these pages is the full and glorious history of this great land… Unless of course my pen starts to run out, in which case I might just write the silly bits.”
There are moments at which even Smith-Dale’s youngest readers might start to find this non-stop flow of jokes exhausting. But Betty Steady and the Toad Witch does have its serious side, as when Betty begins to realise that she has been “A BAG OF UNGRATEFUL UNDERPANTS” and discovers the true value of friendship. The story is well illustrated by Sarah Horne, whose dynamic drawings capture the mayhem. And Smith-Dale is an engaging writer, whose enthusiasm for her wonderful world of trumpet-playing mice and enchanted boiled-eggs proves slowly infectious.
Betty Steady and the Toad Witch is published by Farshore at ￡6.99. To order your copy, call 0808 196 6794 or visit Telegraph Books
