Review - The Beasts of Knobbly Bottom: Rise of the Zombie Pigs

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The Beasts of Knobbly Bottom: Rise of the Zombie Pigs by Emily-Jane Clark, illustrated by Jeff Crowther

The first thing you should know about Knobbly Bottom is that “it is a village, not a bum.”

And despite it being a seemingly boring, sleepy village in the countryside, it’s particularly susceptible to being threatened by terrible creatures…

After defeating the terrible Baa-face and his vampire sheep buddies in book one, Maggie Mackay, little sister Lily and spatula-wielding neighbour and best friend Fred are back and it’s a good job, because there’s something strange happening to the pigs in Knobbly Bottom, and Nan Helsing’s on holiday…can they save the village from being eaten?!

We are HUGE fans of this series. It’s bonkers and barmy and brilliant, and book two is every bit as fun as the first!

As a huge chocolate cake disappears from under the Mackay’s noses, it’s no surprise that Maggie gets the blame, but when more and more food – and other things – around the village start being eaten overnight, Maggie, Lily and Fred know there’s something strange going on.

Their investigations lead them to the nearby pig farm, where hot-cross-bun-stealer Celery Snoot is acting suspiciously and the pigs all seem to be a lot bigger, and hungrier than you’d expect. It’s soon clear, these are no ordinary pigs, but with Nan living her best life in Spain it’s up to the gang to try and stop them destroying the village.

Expect heavy metal, gallons of ketchup, some very sticky toffee and even stickier situations in this laugh-out-loud sequel to Attack of the Vampire Sheep.

Jeff Crowther once again manages to perfectly capture the utter anarchy unfolding in Knobbly Bottom as the pigs run riot and Maggie, Fred and Lily create some collossal messes trying to bring them under control!

This is a fantastically fun series that younger readers will enjoy sharing with a grown up and older readers will enjoy reading to themselves, with enough poo, fart jokes and slapstick humour to keep everyone entertained, as well as the sharp, childlike wisdom that we get from Maggie as her mum is just so…well…mum-like!

Which brings us to the other thing I really like about this series – the relationship between Maggie, her mum and her little sister. It is so real. There is exasperation, there is disbelief, there are constant arguments, trouble and misunderstandings, but behind it all is a fierce love. Even as the girls drive her to distraction, even as mum refuses to let her do the millionth fun thing she’s asked to do that morning they are there for each other…as we see rather brilliantly at the end of this book.

It doesn’t stop Maggie’s mum from putting her foot down about school though, so armed with her new school shoes (eventually, begrudgingly), Maggie is ready to start the village school…what could go wrong?! Well, in the words of a wise-beyond-his-years Peapod: “Of course the school will be weird, because otherwise how will there even be another book?”

And so, we eagerly await book three whilst playing the Top Trump cards we’ve printed and made from the stat pages at the back of the books, but swerving the tomato-ketchup cupcake recipe included (sure it’s delicious really and obviously handy to have in case of zombie pig invasion…)! 

This series has well and truly ignited Peapod’s imagination, he loves it! As do I!