Boffin Boy

The Boffin Boy stories feature Rick Shaw, a 14 year old science whizz who uses his skills to fight evil - as Boffin Boy!

The books appear in a comic-style format, featuring superb high energy, full colour, manga-style illustrations. Unlike most comic books, however, the Boffin Boy books have carefully chosen language, font and simple layout which make them accessible to less able readers.

The simple speech bubble text and captions appear in a clear, legible font on a yellow background to assist dyslexic readers. The vocabulary and word count is carefully controlled throughout.

A lot of attention has also been paid to the positioning of the speech bubbles and captions to ensure they do not confuse the reader, and create an obvious flow through the story.

Boffin Boyz Reading Group
Claire Peacock, Librarian, Holy Trinity Primary School, London

“The Boffin Boyz is a reading group I set up to try to encourage reluctant boy readers who had been identified in Years 4 and 5.  They immediately took to the series and were extremely enthusiastic.  They were (perhaps unsurprisingly) struggling writers too and the Boffin Boyz group has helped them to discover an enthusiasm for writing in the short follow up tasks I have planned to enhance our group reading of the books.

Although the writing tasks are not arduous, the boys are so keen to commit their ideas to paper it is a joy to see.  I believe they are less inclined to view reading and writing with dread and that their willingness to share and record their ideas is a testimony to the quality of the materials and their enthusiasm for it.  This is a great step forward. 

As a direct result of the buzz around the group the Literacy Co-ordinator has planned for David Orme to visit our school during Book Week later this year - the Boffin Boyz are beside themselves with excitement!”