Books › Unreal!
Unreal!
First published 1985 · 160 pages
A gleefully bizarre collection of twist-ending tales where everyday childhood collides with the supernatural and the slightly gross.
What it feels like
Reading this collection feels like swapping wild, slightly forbidden playground rumors with your funniest friend. It moves at a brisk, breathless pace, hooking you instantly with bizarre premises before delivering punchy, twist-in-the-tale endings. The mood is a gleeful mix of the eerie and the absurd, where everyday childhood anxieties are dialed up to supernatural, often gross-out extremes. The prose is highly accessible and conversational, perfectly tuned to keep even the most reluctant readers turning pages. It is an irreverent, laugh-out-loud experience that delights middle-grade readers who crave weirdness, poetic justice, and a healthy dose of toilet humor, leaving them eager to see what bizarre scenario comes next.
- Mood
- gleefully weird
- unpredictable
- slightly eerie
- nostalgic
- Tone
- irreverent
- cheeky
- bizarre
- humorous
- macabre
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- childhood embarrassment · the absurd in the mundane · poetic justice · gross-out humor
- The writing
- Accessible, punchy, and conversational, relying on immediate action and sensory details to hook reluctant readers.
- The arc
- Moves from curious apprehension to gleeful astonishment as each bizarre scenario unfolds toward a satisfying twist.
- Who it's for
- Middle-grade readers who love weird, slightly gross, and highly imaginative twist-in-the-tale stories.
Content notes
- gross-out humor
- toilet humor
- mild supernatural scares
About the book
Unreal! was Paul's first published book that achieved major success having now sold over 600,000 copies. It is Paul's all time best seller and features the classic stories:
Without a Shirt The Strap Box Flyer Skeleton on the Dunny Lucky Lips Cow Dung Custard Lighthouse Blues Smart Ice Cream Wunderpants
Description from Open Library.
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