ANIMALCOLM

“Hello?” said Malcolm. “Are we seriously discussing the pros and cons of getting 700 cats, 800 dogs and five giraffes now?”

Malcolm doesn't like animals. Which is a problem because his family love them, in fact, you could say, they’re wild about them. Their house is simply stuffed full of pets of all shapes and sizes and sometimes Malcolm feels as if there’s not much room for him.

What the house is NOT full of is stuff Malcolm likes, such as the laptop he wanted for his birthday. The only bright spot on the horizon is the Year Six school trip, which Malcolm never thought his parents would pay for. And yet there he is, on the bus, heading to...oh no. A farm.

Over the next days, Malcolm changes, in ways he could never have expected. He learns a lot about animals. He learns what it's really like to be an animal, a whole series of animals, in fact and to Malcom’s surprise it does make him think differently. As well as speak differently, eat differently and um, smell differently.

But will he end up the same as before? Because sometimes the hardest thing to become is yourself.