David Walliams - The Boy in the Dress <AudioBook>

This story is all about a boy named Dennis. He lives in a boring town, and he doesn't have much to look forward to. But what he does have is dreams - and once he starts to follow them, things will never be the same again.

You'll laugh… you'll cry… and once you meet Dennis, he'll live with you forever.

Times Review
Actor David Walliams has written an unprecedented book: a story for children about cross-dressing. Boys have put on girls' clothes in children's literature before (for instance in Terence Blacker's Boy2Girl) and plenty of books have involved disguise, but none of this has ever been done just for the pleasure of it. Walliams's hero is a football-loving boy whose mother has left, and whose family retreats into a chilly masculinity. His mother's dresses remind him of her fun and warmth. And when he befriends a fashion-loving girl (whom he also fancies), he is seduced by the sensual delight of being clad in orange sequins. Walliams plays with the suggestion that this might be autobiographical by using an authorial voice that keeps saying, “not me, no”. His is not the finest writing, and the book has moments of self-indulgent zaniness: two pages of “aaaaaas” convey wailing; three pages of “hahahas” laughter. But it has a light touch and Quentin Blake's illustrations show us the awful teachers and the celebratory moments with apposite joie de vivre. Everyone is on the side of freedom and tolerance by the end, for which the book must be applauded