Certain books in our #Booky100Keepers list have entered our collective family vocabulary, containing words or phrases that have wormed their way into our everyday lives.

Stephanie Blake's brilliant "A Deal's a Deal" is one such book, and arrived just at the right time - as C and her schoolmates began the ritual of swapping - usually with C coming off worse in any playground swapping deal, much to our annoyance (we eventually had to ban her from taking stuff into school as she came back with utter junk which she'd swapped for the expensive Tinc stuff we'd bought her).

In the story Simon the Rabbit rather fancies his best friend Ferdinand's toy car and agrees to a swap, only to realise that the car he's ended up with is plastic, is broken and is utterly worthless.

Simon hatches a plan of dire revenge, claiming that his friend left something inside the car he'd obviously forgotten about, but a deal's a deal, to take back is to steal - so the only way Ferdinand is getting his prized possession back is to swap things back.

We soon find out what the 'hidden thing' inside the car was, once again Stephanie dipping into the grosser side of representing what kids are actually like in real life (we won't keep you in suspense, the 'valuable object' is actually a bogey!)

Stephanie's books are always funny, anarchic, and of course achieve that magical balance of allowing kids to vicariously live through the somewhat unsavoury behaviour of the book's characters, hopefully learning from the moral that each story gently weaves in.

Check out our review links of this and Stephanie's other books:

I Don't Want To Go To School by Stephanie Blake (Random House Children's Books)

A Deal's a Deal by Stephanie Blake (Gecko Press)

ReadItDaddy's First Book of the Week - Week Ending 31st August 2018: "I'm the Biggest" by Stephanie Blake (Gecko Press)

"Nits!" by Stephanie Blake, translated by Linda Burgess (Gecko Press)

Some children's authors have an innate understanding of what can make a child dissolve into a fit of snortles, giggles and sniggers. Stephanie Blake definitely has that particular Jedi mind power down pat - her books have exactly this effect on children (particularly Charlotte) and in her latest book, "A Deal's a Deal" we once again meet slightly cheeky hero Simon the Super-Rabbit.

This time Simon's pooing super-powers are on hold. Instead we see Simon and his best friend indulging in a spot of that favourite childhood pastime, swapping.

Simon has a rather near trio of coloured cars. Ferdinand has a bright red (but plastic, instantly inferior) car. Simon rather likes the red car but isn't sure it's worth three of his favourite cars. Ferdinand definitely likes the look of Simon's three cars but has to call on his powers of persuasion to seal the deal.

Ferdinand is what we refer to in the children's book trade as "a thoroughly bad egg" and Simon, lamentably, discovers all too late that the red car isn't (or should that be is) all it's cracked up to be. But there's no going back - after all, a deal's a deal, to take it back is to steal!

Stephanie's delightful and rib-tickling story has a wonderful pay off at the end (which, naturally, we're not going to spoil for you!) Charlotte loved the payoff and I rather loved the memories this invoked of feverish negotiations in the playground when I was a kid (I think I was stupid enough to once swap a packet of Monster Munch for a Matchbox car - well I WAS hungry and packets of Monster Munch were quite substantial back then!)

"A Deal's a Deal" by Stephanie Blake is out on November 1st (Gecko Press)


Charlotte's best bit: Simon wins the day, in quite a disgusting way!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Swapping! Ah the memories!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Gecko Press)