Jason Mason and the World’s Most Powerful Itching Powder,
Jason Gunn and Andrew Gunn, Bateman Books, 2022
Jason Mason and the World’s Most Powerful Itching Powder is deservedly on the shortlist of the NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2023. I picked it up one morning and it didn’t leave my hand until I had finished it – it is so so gripping. Jason Gunn is a well known TV presenter while his brother David has worked as a feature and TV writer. They make a cracking team because this is a cracking book.
Jason Mason is a kid who doesn’t like reading, is useless at rugby and he finds classroom learning tough going. The school bully pinches the tastiest treat from his lunchbox every day. But things are about to change for this ordinary kid because Jason Mason is left a book when his uncle dies. (Oh I am not sure there is any such thing as an ORDINARY kid!!)
GET SET to rollerhollercoast your way through a world of secret agents, secret adventures, secret gadgets. The story twists and sparkles with laugh-out loud humour and twists and sparkles with unexpected story turns. Genius!
Cheryl Smith’s inside design is perfect, with story action replayed through her choice of fonts: the style, size, boldness always ON the MOVE! Her illustrations are a sweet match to the quirky, extraordinary, time-to-save-the world-from-evil, daring escapades of Jason Mason.
Jason and David have imaginations that pop and sizzle. Such word skill! Such audacious puns. Such deftly flowing sentences. They have created a main character who as multifaceted and as fascinating as a prism. The characters come alive, the situations get crazy tense, the word play is wide-grin material. Yet while this is an addictive action and top-shelf humour book, it is also beautifully layered as you get closer to the fears, worries, joys and delights of an everyday kid. Jason Mason is about to go on the learning curve of his life and we get to go too.
I LOVE this book – and hope a copy finds its way into the hands of every kid who is not that fussed about books and every kid who is. This one might get them clamouring (or as it says on the blurb ITCHING) for more. Brilliant! Mark me down for the nedt adventure please!
JASON GUNN is a television and radio personality with a long list of shows and projects to his name, including The Son of a Gunn Show, What Now, Dancing with the Stars, Wheel of Fortune, and The Rich List, and afternoon shows on radio stations Classic Hits and More FM
ANDREW GUNN is a talented writer who has long worked behind-the-scenes as a writer on his brother Jason’s various screen and stage productions.
Bateman Books page
Poetry Box 