Liz Pichon Audiobooks

Tom Gates brings his schemes to audio in Biscuits, Bands and Very Big Plans

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.7/5 average

3 listener ratings

Who is Liz Pichon?

Liz Pichon, born on 16 August 1963, is a British author and illustrator of children’s books who made her name with the Tom Gates series – stories often described as satirical realist comedy fiction, which is a scholarly way of saying they find the funny side of school, family and everyday chaos and refuse to let go of it.

The numbers behind the series are remarkable by any measure: 16.5 million copies sold, translated into 44 languages across 47 international markets. Playground politics, it turns out, translate everywhere. And because Pichon is an illustrator as well as a writer, her books are ones where words and pictures grow up together on the page – which makes audio an intriguing test of how far the voice alone can carry them.

Liz Pichon in audiobooks

On audio, Pichon’s brand of comedy lives or dies by voice, and her storytelling is a natural for it: big personalities, quick scenes and jokes that land hardest when spoken aloud. Our catalogue features Biscuits, Bands and Very Big Plans, a title that telegraphs exactly what listeners are in for – snacks, music and schemes rather more ambitious than their architect. Whatever happens to the drawings in an audio edition, the energy survives the jump intact.

For UK families this is dependable in-car listening: young listeners get the gags, adults get the sly observational humour underneath them, and 16.5 million copies worldwide suggest the formula is no fluke.