A Fine Mess

A Fine Mess Out of Print. Available in some libraries and second-hand bookstores. ISBN 1 92073102 4 Paperback fiction. Middle readers. (198 x 128 13mm) Fremantle Press 2004.

Michael Hardy and his friend, Woody Decker, are just ordinary teenage boys who happen to have a talent for creating disaster. It all begins when in the course of testing a replica Roman catapult they have built for a school project they accidentally fire a brick through a church window. And so a month of mayhem is unleashed. The school library burns down, the school principal is knocked unconscious and a regiment of garden gnomes is massacred. Could anything else go wrong? Yes, a thousand times yes! As punishment Michael and Woody are forced to join the Bright Sparks, the fire brigade cadets. Could anything be more uncool? Only if you count starring roles in Romeo and Juliet, the school play in which the entire cast forget their lines and debacle descends into utter chaos. But alls well that ends well when Michael scores the hottest chick in the whole school. Uproariously funny and witheringly witty, A Fine Mess will have kids everywhere laughing out loud and begging for mercy


Publisher: Fremantle Press

Awards

Shortlisted, West Australian Young Readers’ Book Award, 2006


Out of Print. Available in some libraries and second-hand bookstores.

Teaching notes