Battering Rams

Wicked! #2

by Morris Gleitzman

Dawn and Rory find their parents' car wrecked with blood-stained seats, They begin to panic - was it the slobberers? Will Dawn and Rory be next on the menu?

Genres: Fiction, Childrens, Humor

Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Morris began his writing career as a screenwriter, and wrote his first children's novel in 1985. His brilliantly comic style has endeared him to children and adults alike, and he is now one of Australia's most successful authors, both internationally and at home. He was born in England in 1953 and emigrated to Australia in 1969 so he could escape from school and become a Very Famous Writer.

Before realising that dream, he had a colourful career as paperboy, bottle-shop shelf-stacker, department store Santa Claus, frozen chicken defroster, fashion-design assistant and sugar-mill employee. In between he managed to gain a degree in Professional Writing at the Canberra College of Advanced Education. Later he became sole writer for three award-winning and top-rating seasons with the TV comedy series The Norman Gunston Show.

Morris wrote a number of feature film and telemovie screenplays, including The Other Facts of Life and Second Childhood, both produced by The Australian Children's Television Foundation. The Other Facts of Life won an AWGIE Award for the Best Original Children's Film Script.

He also wrote live stage material for people such as Rolf Harris, Pamela Stephenson and the Governor General of Australia. Morris is well known to many people through his semi-autobiographical columns in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald magazine, Good Weekend, which he wrote for nine years.

But the majority of Morris' accolades are for his hugely popular children's books. One of his most successful books for young people is Two Weeks with the Queen, an international bestseller which was also adapted into a play by Mary Morris. The play had many successful seasons in Australia and was then produced at the National Theatre in London in 1995 directed by Alan Ayckbourn, and also in South Africa, Canada, Japan and the USA.

All his other books have been shortlisted for or have won numerous children's book prizes. These include The Other Facts of Life, Second Childhood, Misery Guts, Worry Warts, Puppy Fat, Blabber Mouth, Sticky Beak, Belly Flop, Water Wings, Bumface, Gift Of The Gab, Toad Rage, Wicked! and Deadly!, two six-part novels written in collaboration with Paul Jennings, Adults Only, Toad Heaven, Boy Overboard, Teacher's Pet, Toad Away, Girl Underground, Worm Story, Once, Aristotle's Nostril, Doubting Thomas, Give Peas A Chance, Then, Toad Surprise, Grace, Now, Too Small To Fail, and his latest book, Pizza Cake. Morris' children's books have been published in the UK, the USA, Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Indonesia and Czechoslovakia, Russia and China.

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

probably should have started from the beginning of the series. took me until two-thirds of the way in to realise that the main character / narrator alternated every chapter...

[Redfox5 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember buying this book at one of those school book fairs. I have a feeling the £1 price tag must of had something to do with it because why else would I have brought the second one instead of the first? I remember reading this and not liking it. But couldn't remember anything else. Actually enjoyed it more reading it as an adult although this is really a book that needs to be read in order. It follows off straight from the last one and took me a little while to figure out who was who and what was going on. I liked the bus scene best with everything going back in time. I'm vaguely interested in what happens next but not enough to hunt down the rest of the books.

[s e n t i m e n t a l i t i e s olittlebear · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit more enjoyable as I rather like sheep and the sheep aspect was entertaining. Slugs on the other hand are creepy without being of massive proportions and carnivorous.