Tom Gates 20: Happy to Help (eventually)

Product Information

Most of the story revolves around things that happen at school. There are teachers he likes and doesn’t like, and children who he has difficult relationships with as well as his mates. The books are filled with jokes and really dynamic illustrations. My son will laugh out loud. It was only when she and her husband were investigating issues for their son as a child – he’s now 30 – that she realised about her own dyslexia. “We discovered that he had various different things like hearing problems, speech problems, and as we were going through the process with him, they always talked to the parents, and everything they were saying was like, well, you’re probably dyslexic. So I’ve never officially been diagnosed, but my family have always thought it.” Despite the sales, and the readers around the world – Tom Gates has been translated into 45 languages – that “panic” is always still there. “I just assume it’s always going to end, and so every book, I’m really trying hard to put new things in it. If I was a Tom Gates fan, what would I expect? What else can I put in the book that I think kids would really like?” Pichon’s Tom Gates series is published by Scholastic and includes titles such as Tom Gates: Biscuits, Bands and Very Big Plans and Tom Gates: The Brilliant World of Tom Gates. The latest book in the series, Tom Gates: Happy to Help (Eventually) will be published on 13th October 2022. Lauren Fortune, fiction publisher at Scholastic UK, said: “Liz Pichon is an incredible talent and we are proud to be growing and expanding the Brilliant World of Tom Gates into new publishing areas so fans and new readers can enjoy even more of her uniquely engaging graphic style, doodling inspiration and humour. Laugh out loud and always relatable, Tom Gates: Happy to Help (Eventually) is set to hook even more children on reading and we can’t wait to see it in children’s hands.”

Ten years after the first was published, the 19th Tom Gates book, Random Acts of Fun – “Hanging out with a kid who likes to eat sugar from a bowl. (NOT fun.) Watching squirrels steal stuff from the garden. (Who knew that would be SO much FUN?)” – is just out, and Pichon has no plans on calling a halt any time soon. Liz Pichon has recently released a new book, Shoe Wars. The footastic book features lots of shoe puns! It was released in October 2020. I have a soft spot for this series, so love it when a new book comes out. This one was hilarious. Kids eating bowls full of sugar, caramel doughnuts, cool grandparents and a whole heap of illustrations to boot!” Rania T. A Tom Gates costume is a super easy dress up for World Book Day at school (great for us lazier mums!) The top-of-the-class, extra special 20th book from multi-million copy selling author and illustrator Liz Pichon.

The latest Tom Gates book was released in October 2021. Tom Gates Book 19: Random Acts of Fun is available now. Additional books – including a new Tom Gates book for 2022! I loved funny books, and I was being offered funny books to illustrate, but I thought if I wanted to illustrate one I’d better write it myself,” she says. “I didn’t actually get to write my own stories until I was in my mid-40s.” There are also 4 additional Tom Gates themed books by Liz Pichon, including a drawing book to be released in March 2022. In terms of an age recommendation, I think these are great books for ages 8+ and if you want to start at the beginning, the first Tom Gates book is The Brilliant World of Tom Gates, which was first published in 2011.

Our book of the month for children ages 7+ is the brand new Tom Gates book: Happy to Help (Eventually). This is the twentieth book in Liz Pichon’s best-selling series and is sure to be a hit with any existing Tom Gates fans, or any fans of highly illustrated series such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Dork Diaries.

Author/Illustrator

She started out with other people’s, but then had a go at writing her own picture books. Square-Eyed Pat, about a telly addict dog, was published in 2003, followed by My Big Brother Boris, in which Little Croc and his brother live in a swamp. “It doesn’t seem quite so jolly now,” Pichon says of the title, but it won her the Smarties prize, and got her properly thinking about the kind of book she would have loved to read herself as a child. PR includes BBC Breakfast, CBBC Newsround, Channel 5 News and a wealth of print media including Liz as expert judge for the Sun on its Christmas card competition.