Opie Jones Talks to Animals

Dr Dolittle meets Kid Normal in a hilarious middle grade superhero series from comedian Nat Luurtsema. Perfect for fans of David Baddiel, Charlie Changes into a Chicken, My Brother is a Superhero and Lightning Girl

10-year-old Opie Jones is Very Ordinary. In fact nothing remarkable has ever happened to her, if you don’t count the cat that gives her funny looks from next door (which she doesn’t). So she is naturally very surprised when she is recruited to join The Resistance – a team of superheroes who can read minds, and have a dastardly brainwashing villain to defeat.

HOWEVER, it turns out Opie can’t read human minds, she can read ANIMAL ones. The other members of the Resistance are very disappointed. And a whole world of animal chat and demands is opening up to her. She’s still a superhero, just one on her hands and knees in the mud, chatting to a pedantic worm.

But when the brainwashing villain is out to get Opie and her friends, it might just be that listening to all the creatures great and small is what makes Opie Jones the right person to save the world.

About the author

Nat Luurtsema was a stand-up comic for eight years and is now a comedy writer, author and film-maker. She was nominated for a BAFTA for her first short film, collaborates in comedy writers’ rooms and is an occasional co-host on the podcast The Guilty Feminist. She writes funny books for children and teenagers, and Opie Jones is her first middle grade book.

Fay Austin lives with her family in Surrey. Self-taught, Fay has spent the last 14 years wrapped up in children’s stories and imaginations working as a creative practitioner in schools and theatrical settings. In 2014, she completed an MA at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (University London). Although Fay often likes to keep her “jazz hand” past quiet, she still loves to belt out Disney songs at the top of her lungs (much to her husband and son’s dismay) Fay is at her happiest with a cup of tea in one hand and a pencil in the other. She regards Neil Buchanan as an icon and national treasure.