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If kids play up ...blame him!
9/ 5/2008
WITH a name like The Bare Bum Gang, you wouldn't mistake them for one of Enid Blyton's more polite creations, but they could give the Famous Five a run for their money.
'The Bare Bum Gang and the Football Face-Off' is the latest book by Cheetham Hill born Anthony McGowan and tells the tale of a bunch of mischief makers protecting their den from a rival pack.
Instead of resorting to their usual strategy of setting up Smarties-tube fart bombs, preparing pit traps involving dog mess and nettles and the like, the gang are challenged to defend their hang-out in a winner- takes-all football match.
Anthony, who now lives in Finchley, North London, previously wrote 'Henry Tumour' for teen readers, but this is his first foray into children's books.
"Listening to the endless chatter of my eight-year-old son and his friends acted like a time machine," he said. "I was suddenly zipped back to my own childhood, spent building dens guarded by elaborate traps, going on exciting expeditions, playing gruesome football matches against the local hard kids, and obsessing over which sweets to buy with my meagre pocket money.
"And once I was back there, the first Bare Bum Gang book just exploded out of me like one of the Smarties tube fart bombs that the readers can learn how to make."
The book, published by Red Fox, is out now and priced £4.99.
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