Barry Bennet is a 9 year old boy who hates his parents. Firstly, he finds them boring, secondly they are always tired and finally, of all the names in the world, they chose ‘Barry’ for him. He is also fed up with his twin sisters as he believes his parents are favouring them.
One day, after having a big fight with his parents he runs upstairs to his bedroom to get away from them. There, he says three times “I wish I had better parents!” but on the third time the ground starts to shake and his adventure begins.
Barry enters a new world where children are allowed to choose their parents after trying them out, with the help of the Parent Agency. Barry is very excited about it but then he finds out that he has to choose his new parents before his tenth birthday ... which is in 5 days! He therefore has one day per set of parents.
I enjoyed reading the book because bits of it were funny. However, I didn’t really like Barry as he seems to be difficult to please. The five sets of parents were silly, funny and at times a bit predictable. My favourite set of parents is the Fwahms because they are extremely fit. They do not own a car and they do everything, such as watching telly and chatting, while they are running. Even for Barry’s birthday party they take him to play football, but before the match they make him do 100 press ups, sit ups, ‘head-furtles’ and other painful exercises. And that was just the warm up!
Although the story as a concept is good and funny, I couldn’t help finding it a bit repetitive towards the end. Having said that, I didn’t find the ending predictable. The illustrations are a big plus to the book because they are funny and very detailed. I also like the author’s renaming of London to ‘Youngdon’.
To conclude, I found it a reasonably enjoyable comedy. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 7½.
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