posted on 31 Aug 2025

Blitzers by Alastair Chisholm, illustrated by Francesca Ficorilli

As a grandparent to two young grandsons who love technology, I thought that this book might give me some useful insight into this baffling world. The must-have device at the heart of this engaging story is a ‘Blitzer’, a virtual fighting creature which is described as ’about the size of a post-it pad with a screen and some buttons’ Every kid has one apart from Danny, whose Mum has told him that he has to wait for his birthday. A month seems an interminable wait, so when his big brother Jay gives him one, he is very happy.

Although it is clearly well used, it all seems to work ok and the screen shows that it is called ‘Chew Lip’, a tubby bear-like creature living in a pretty looking forest. This doesn’t quite measure up to his friend Tan’s Blitzer which is called ‘ Hook Jaw’ that has rather more menacing features including shark teeth and lives on the deck of an old shipwreck. Danny tries to be optimistic as Tan explains that he needs to take time to train it to be an effective fighting machine but when the two devices click together for their first battle on a screen, Chew Lip is quickly demolished.

Danny is determined to prove that his Blitzer is as good as any other one, even when he finds out that it was probably a reject from the factory. He patiently runs through practice attacks on the training dummies that are part of the programme, but Chew Lip doesn’t appear to want to hit them at all! When he goes to the avatar version of Major Tusk who is the public face of Blitzers inc, he just gets told to keep telling it to hit something and ‘ show it who is boss!’ I started to wqrm towards Chew Lip who has meanwhile wandered back to the forest and is looking at a butterfly. He is obviously a non conformist, possibly even a pacifist, but how is that going to be helpful to Danny?

When the enormous school bully, Mel and her bunch of nasty sidekicks taunt him and Tan in the school playground the following day, Danny has to hope that he can prove himself. It turns out that Mel has family links to Blitzers Inc, is the best Blitzer trainer around and has three special Gold editions, on chains around her neck. I loved the illustration that shows her holding up the screen of ‘ Kill Face … its face is a metal nightmare of scarred steel’ next to the screen with Chew Lip putting a bunch of flowers in a vase. What could possibly go wrong?

I won’t spoil the unfolding plot except to say that having a kind big brother proves to be very helpful. Danny learns to recognise that direct fighting isn’t the only desirable skill for a Blitzer to win a battle. He proves to be a very effective trainer along the way helping it to develop several impressive moves. He uses praise and encouragement despite being told by online advisors to use discipline, maximum aggression and to punish failure.

I strongly recommend this story which manages to convey lots of positive messages about patience, strategy, the power of music, friendship and the strength of a supportive family in overcoming some challenging stuff. Jay’s wise advice should also help the reader to think about the influence of online influencers and relentless marketing:

‘ There’s a million of those loud jerks out there. Loud isn’t the same as right.’

Most importantly, it has a great plot with plenty of jeopardy and a range of believable characters that really come to life with the graphic illustrations. But will the intriguing Blitzers ever be developed as a real world device, (with some necessary modifications of course? )My grandsons both think that they seem much more exciting than Tamagotchis and so would be a fantastic edition to the virtual world. Even I might be tempted to get one like Chew Lips, so fingers crossed!

Barrington Stoke specialise in publishing books for reluctant readers of all kinds and never disappoint. This one is now available from your local independent bookshop - who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have it on their shelves.

 

Karen Argent

September 2025