What a great day it was when I came across Better Out Than In by Adam Wallace with illustrations by Heath McKenzie. Only a handful of books exist that can totally engage class after class in a primary school library across all year levels. Better Out Than In nails it every time.

It has dominated as the schools most read book in the Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge and children constantly request it to be read out loud during their library classes.



Better Out than In consists of 6 rhyming stories featuring squeaky clean children up against the grossness of their own bodily functions. Adam Wallace brilliantly builds up each tale by layering little gross moments, so that by the end of each story the disgustingness just explodes all over you! For instance Nancy's Nose starts off with an innocent looking girl, wonderfully illustrated by Heath McKenzie:
going in for a pick.

Just a little one, maybe a scratch,

To clear some snot from an itchy patch.



Eventually Nancy can't resist eating it, and so



The pieces of snot looked

like green spinach leaf,



Jammed right in to the

gaps of her teeth.



This is accompanied by one of Heath McKenzie's most disgusting, but hilarious illustrations. (No matter how many times I read this to myself, or aloud, I still laugh and gag at the same time.)

If you want a book that children burst at the seams to read, then this is the book for you.

And just for the record, even the scandalised princesses will ask for more!