Amazon.co.uk ReviewMitch's dad, the town bank manager, has had to pull the plug on numerous businesses thanks to the recession, and this makes Mitch an obvious target for incessant and increasingly violent bullying. He turns to Doug, his guardian angel, for help despite the fact that his family think he is too old to have an imaginary friend. As Mitch attempts to win over the bullies by becoming a champion diver, his family's problems get much worse and it is only when real disaster hits the town that anything can be resolved.
Morris Gleitzman is one of Australia's funniest and best-loved children's authors with the amazing and enviable capacity to tackle the trickiest of subjects in a way that makes the reader swing from laughter to tears with barely a moment's notice. A terrific combination of slapstick comedy, tense drama and emotional truth, Belly Flop is no exception to the classic Gleitzman rule. --Susan Harrison
