Book review - Marvellous Moone Boy and the Marvellous Activity Manual

Martin Moone, also known as Moone Boy, is eleven years old and fed up with being the only boy in a family full of girls. So when his best friend suggests that get an imaginary friend (IF for short) he decides to give it a go. This funny collection of books is based on the television show Moone Boy, starring Chris O'Dowd.

The first book, Moone Boy: The Blunder Years (affiliate link), introduces Martin and his first attempts at finding an imaginary friend. The story continues in Moone Boy 2: The Fish Detective (affiliate link) and in Moone Boy: The Marvellous Activity Manual (affiliate link), written from the point of view of Sean 'Caution' Murphy, Martin Moone's BIF (Best Imaginary Friend) the reader can take part in a variety of games, puzzles, jokes and crafts to find their very own Imaginary Friend.

The Marvellous Activity Manual is divided into seven Yections - a Yection being a small section of the year. There are seven Yections, and as part of the blog book tour I was challenged to complete one of the activities in Yection 4 - Golden Days, the part of the year from the 20th May to the end of the school term. There's a fun multiple choice quiz, a comic story, and a Moone Dictionary with lots of Irish slang. The activity is Whif Whist - to help with the research for creating your own imaginary friend you can make some score cards to see which characteristics you'd most like in your own IF.

I made up some simple blank cards for Harry and then printed out a page of cartoon faces - you could also draw your own or use pictures cut from a magazine. Then he chose a face, came up with a name, and wrote down the key information about his potential Imaginary Friend - Age, Special Skills and Hobbies, giving each characteristic a score. We backed the cards with thin cardboard. He had great fun making the cards, and then when there were finished we were able to play the game with them!

These books are a lot of fun. They are amusing, and written in a style that will definitely appeal to young readers. The text is interspersed with cartoons and diagrams, and there is a lot of humour. Perfect for Harry!

I received copies of these books to review. Amazon links are affiliate.