Anyone who likes Mac Black\u2019s \u201cPlease call me Derek\u201d (and the rest in the series covering his grown-up adventures) will enjoy introducing younger friends and family to his new series, \u201cSweaty and Pals\u201d. Derek hated his nickname and now we find out how he came by it. Filled with stories about Derek\u2019s exploits with his gang in the eighties, with quirky illustrations (by Mac Black), the stories build on Derek\u2019s ability to find disasters and get himself into one mess after another.<\/p>\n
Sweaty\u2019s tales are about little kids enjoying life, before smartphones and computer games came along. Of course, it is just possible \u2013 if you\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0older than five \u2013 that you did all these things yourself\u2026<\/p>\n Mac has embraced writing for younger readers with the same quirky clean humour that permeates his YA series. From Sweaty\u2019s first day at school, we meet some of the wonderful characters who pepper the adult books, subtly dealing with issues around prejudice, being different, living with the elderly, losing parents \u2013 but in a gentle, no-nonsense way that exposes the social discrimination \u00a0and values that we took for granted, in those days, but we would not accept, today. This makes these stories a perfect springboard for class discussions about daily life for children thirty years ago compared with now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Mac Black
\nFeatures stories about Derek with his gang in the eighties, quirkily\u00a0illustrated (by Mac Black), the stories build on Derek\u2019s ability to find disasters and get himself into one mess after another. Sweaty\u2019s tales are about little kids enjoying life, before smartphones and computer games came along. Of course, it is just possible \u2013 if you\u00a0are\u00a0older than five \u2013 that you did all these things yourself\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[553,26,31,28,25,551],"product_tag":[99,97,290,98,289],"class_list":{"0":"post-96","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_author-mac-black","7":"product_cat-artwork","8":"product_cat-books","9":"product_cat-children","10":"product_cat-fiction","11":"product_cat-home","12":"product_cat-illustrated","13":"product_tag-derek","14":"product_tag-mac-black","15":"product_tag-pals","16":"product_tag-relations-and-relationships","17":"product_tag-sweaty","18":"product_shipping_class-standard1","19":"pa_rrp-23-899","21":"first","22":"instock","23":"taxable","24":"shipping-taxable","25":"purchasable","26":"product-type-simple","27":"add-to-wishlist-after_add_to_cart"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uppbooks.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}