The Donut Diaries of Dermot Milligan

by Anthony McGowan, David Tazzyman (Illustrator)

"A British Diary of a Wimpy Kid", featuring Dermot, an overweight eleven-year-old, is hilariously funny and insightful. Dermot Milligan's got problems. He's overweight and hooked on donuts. He has a pushy, over-achieving mother, and a father who spends all his time hiding in the loo. His sisters, Ruby and Ella (known as Rubella) attack him relentlessly from the opposite directions of Chav and Goth. And now, he's being sent to a nutritionist, Doctor Morlock, who looks like a Dementor from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This diary is Doc Morlock's idea. Not only does Dermot have to write down how many donuts he eats, but also - and this is the really rubbish part - he has to talk about his feelings! But things are about to get even worse - he's being separated from his friends and sent to St Michael's, a posh school where he just knows he's going to stick out like a sore thumb. A sore thumb with a weight problem...

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2011

About the author

Anthony John McGowan is an English author of books for children, teenagers and adults. He is the winner of the 2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal for Lark. In addition to his 2020 win, he has been twice longlisted (for The Knife That Killed Me in 2008 and Brock in 2014) and once shortlisted (for Rook in 2018) for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, and is the winner of the 2006 Booktrust Teenage Prize for Henry Tumour.

Reviews

[Emma]

I just could not get on with Dermot at all, I found him very very annoying. Even the 10yo didn't like him.
So I asked my guest reviewer Kain to review it for me being 13 and a boy I thought he might be able to relate to Dermot a bit better than myself or the 10yo.
This is what Kain thought:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book so much so that I finished reading it within a day! The reason I liked it so much is because it’s the English version of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Which I also thoroughly enjoyed!
The joke at the end with the alpha ape and the FHK is very funny. Also the way he calls secondary school “Big School” and all the Note To Self’s. His uniform was comical with the way it looks!

[Han Far · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I run a Children's Book Group at the Library called 'Chatterbooks'. Each year we run a 'Book Of the Year', where 6 shortlisted books are given to the children, they have to read all 6 then vote for their favourite. The one with the most votes becomes the Book Of The Year. This is one of them. I usually read them all so I can talk about them with the kids, so more will appear over the next few weeks.
Dermot is 11 and very overweight, he has an addiction to donuts and eats a mass amount each day. He is sent to a nutritionist, it's either that or fat camp. She tells him to keep a diary of how many donuts he eats and what he gets up to - what triggers his donut cravings.
Personally I didn't love it, but children will absolutely adore it! It's filled with burping, farting, poo jokes, etc, perfect for 8-12 year old boys. As that is the market of this book, the author has done it perfectly. There is a quick humour and easy confidence to Dermot. He is a very likeable character and can tell a good story. Kids will find it easy to read and I think this could take off as well as 'Wimpy Kid' did.

In terms of my enjoyment of this book I would give it 2/5 but rating it in regards of it's intended audience, then it works perfectly and so would give it 4/5. Add this to Christmas lists if you have a child between 8-12, especially boys.
I'm quite looking forward to giving this to my book group.

[Zakaria E · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book it quite funny and I really enjoyed it in the book a boy and he really likes donut but he is eats to many donuts so he's quite fat so if he keeps on eating donuts he has to go to camp fatso but he's starting secondary school but when he introduces him self he messed up and he said his name is donut and many people call him donut because of that so he meets this kid called ffk kid and he bullies donut and at the end he went on a trip and humiliated the ffk kid by getting a gorilla to throw waste at donut but donut dodge and it hit the ffk kid also he didn't had to go to camp fatso because he used some of the waste

[CLV Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dermot is 11 years old and overweight - and has a serious addiction to donuts. To avoid being sent to fat camp by his wellmeaning parents, Dermot agrees to try and cut down on his donut intake and writes a diary to keep track of what triggers his donut eating. But there's more to Dermot's life than just donuts, annoying big sisters, starting a new school and falling foul of the school bullies all feature. If you liked the diaries of the Wimpy Kid you'll love these - funny, brilliantly illustrated and full of all the disgusting things that make 9-12 year old boys laugh.

[Tripti · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was disgustingly good. Like lots of laughs, some cringey moments and a couple of minutes just thinking... why am I reading this at like 4 a.m. Yeah that's because once you pick it up, you can't keep it down. Nuh uh, you just HAVE to find out what's the donut count or what's the type of stool (yeah, stool.. human feces... disgustingly good rmmbr).
Honestly, it was a good read but kids would like it much better than I did (for obvious reasons, 'cuz they can actually relate to the type of humor and the transition from being a' child' to a 'big kid')

[Bess · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amusing children's book covering events that kids would identify with at this age. Targeted at boys, so I'm afraid I couldn't fully appreciate the poo/booger/fart humour. Some interesting character quirks with the parents, though, that don't really get explained - kept me intrigued.

[Sue Hughes]

reading this with Ben. a fun story about an obsese lad (who likes donuts) and how he is sent away to Fat Camp over the Easter Holidays! It had us all in stitches by page 2!

[Tyler_zakiyareadsbooks_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really funny, good for children!

[Shira · Rating 5 out of 5]

ahhh finally a MG book that assumes young readers can actually 'get' witty punchlines and complex sentences. It certainly made one -much older reader- crack a laugh.

[Chloe Valentine · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was ok

[Harvey McLean · Rating 5 out of 5]

no more words needed: absolutely brilliant!